SWEDISH PIRATE IN CAMBODIA

Media pirate Gotfrid (photo:Wikipedia)

I’m having lunch in a riverside restaurant bar; one of the more expensive places that caters to foreigners in Phnom Penh. Despite the pricey menu and atmosphere, a small cockroach runs across my table. 

Well, they don’t have regular health inspections in Cambodian restaurants, so it’s no surprise really. Rather than kill it, I take a deep breath, and blow it off the table onto the floor. Maybe these peaceful Buddhists here are starting to rub off on me. 

As I eat my sandwich, in walks a very white European, with a long, uneven red beard. A young guy, he looks like he’s still in his 20’s. Taking a seat at the bar, the American bartender and owner walks up to greet him. 

“I saw you on CNN,” he says shaking the bearded one's hand. Upon hearing that my ears perk up; I figure he must have an interesting story to tell. I’m not disappointed.  

This fair skinned young man is Gotfrid Svartholm, and he had just flown in from Sweden this morning. He also happens to be one of the founders of an infamous internet website, by the name of ‘The Pirate Bay’. Following in the tradition of Napster, Gotfrid and his friends had created a file sharing site for exchanging and downloading movies and music, for free. 

Their website became so popular providing free digital entertainment, that it was soon targeted by American media companies. Since his website brought no royalties for the movie and music companies, it violated the copyright laws of numerous countries. Their offices were eventually raided by Swedish police, and shut down. 

“They filed a $15 million dollar lawsuit,” Gotfrid told me. Their case had been all over the news. 

I'd heard Cambodia was one of the few countries in the world, where fugitives from the law had come to hide out, and now I'd met one! But I wasn't expecting a fugitive to be as personable as Gotfrid. He’s a friendly, pleasant guy. Except for his teeth, he certainly doesn’t seem like a pirate, 

He's not living life under the radar either, he opened an IT company here in Phnom Penh, “I’m glad that copyright laws are not enforced in Cambodia,” he tells me. 

Finishing his lunch, he says goodbye to me. He has to go get some sleep after his long flight. I think I would have a hard time sleeping, if I was facing a $15 million dollar lawsuit. 

Sometime later, I learned that Gotfrid was arrested, and extradited back to Sweden. He and three others were found guilty of collaborating to violate copyright law. They were sentenced to one year in prison, and collectively fined $3.6 million. 

Apparently foreign fugitives are no longer welcome in Cambodia. 

TV AND FORBIDDEN FOREIGN MARRIAGE

Local TV seems locked in the 1970's

Taking some time to relax in my downtown hotel room, I stretch out on my twin bed that’s too small, and turn on the boxy old television. Flat screen TV’s aren’t so common in Laos these days. 

Surfing the channels on offer, local shows aren’t much to look at, since Lao TV is still government controlled. Like their communist neighbors in Vietnam and China, Laos has allowed economic liberalism, while maintaining tight control of public media. Production quality is low; some of the current shows on television look like they were made in the 1970’s. 

Fortunately for the viewers of Vientiane, TV’s here receive broadcasts from the other side of the Mekong. The highly developed media from the relatively free country of Thailand produces the most popular shows in Laos, especially the Thai soap operas. Since the Thai and Lao languages are very similar, most Laotians comprehend Thai TV shows quite well. These shows add to the ongoing love-hate relationship that Laos has with Thailand. 

I don’t speak Thai or Lao, so I’d like to go online, but my room doesn’t have wifi. There’s no hardwire internet connection either. Fortunately the hotel lobby has a computer for internet use. There are also a few internet cafés in town, filled with foreign backpackers doing email, with a few Laotian teenagers doing chat. There isn’t much internet censorship in Laos yet, for the most part it remains relatively open. Relatively few Laotians can even afford internet access, so it's not much of a threat to the current government. Not yet anyway. 

While the internet and Thai TV continue to get around the Laotian government censors, the local Lao newspapers don’t. Case in point is a copy of the local English language newspaper that I’ve bought, ‘The Vientiane Times’. 

I scan the front page, and a front page headline says, “Recognition for Skilled Workers on the Way.” Great reading, if you want to go to sleep. To a westerner like me, government controlled news is hardly news at all. 

Lane Xang Hotel in Vientiane, you foreigners with Laotian girlfriends, stay out!

I find one notable and story inside, with a misleading title: “Police ensure Lao women have good husbands.” While the title sounds ludicrous, the story actually refers to Laotian women and their foreign husbands, and to the ongoing problem of human trafficking. It’s a fact that arranged marriages are sometimes connected to human trafficking, a serious problem in Southeast Asia. Some women are pushed into sham marriages, and then forced into prostitution. Others have been pressed into jobs with slave labor conditions. 

The story goes on to mention that some foreigners with criminal backgrounds had been marrying Laotian women, solely so that they could stay in Laos indefinitely without visa problems. 

Foreigners with serious Lao girlfriends are not allowed to bring them into local hotels. This brings up the issue of senior westerners coming to Laos, and marrying young Lao ladies. These marriages are officially discouraged; clear discrimination. A local news story cites a case where the government is withholding official approval of a marriage between a 21 year old Laotian woman, and a foreign man in his 60’s. 

 “Police were suspicious about the marriage, believing the man would treat the young woman like a servant,” the newspaper says. Obviously that's a double standard. In this male dominated society, police believe it’s ok for Laotian men to treat their wives like servants, but not foreigners. 

The paper later quotes a Laotian Brigadier General as saying, “it is unbelievable that a man aged over 60 is unmarried.” 

Apparently this general has never heard of bachelorhood, or a western divorce! 

HOLLYWOOD, HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND VIETNAM

US TV shows can be viewed in Vietnam

I'm watching TV in my hotel room, and I'm surprised by what I see. I'm expecting bland communist programming, but I find television in Vietnam has taken a very western bend. Flipping through channels, I find the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and many of their familiar shows are dubbed or subtitled into Vietnamese. The rise of satellite TV here has revolutionized the media.  

Even away from cable and satellite networks, even locally produced shows rise from western influences. I was amused one night to watch a competitive dance show, which looked much like ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Another channel had the Vietnamese version of the game show, “The Price is Right”. The popular show had similar games for the contestants, who wore familiar yellow name tags. Even the theme song was the same!

As for popular movies, American made blockbusters are making it to Vietnam’s many multi-screen theaters. If a hit movie can’t be seen there, they can easily be found on pirated DVD’s, sold by vendors on the city streets. Banning movies from theaters, only increases their sales on the black market.

It’s no surprise that most American made movies on the Vietnam War aren't seen

Dustin Nguyen of 21 Jump Street returned to Vietnam

in theaters here, or on Vietnamese TV either. But there are already plenty of locally made war movies showing the Vietnamese side of the war, with the Americans and French depicted as the villains. In recent years, Vietnam has developed a growing local film community, producing privately made films in Vietnamese. Their films aren’t about drab old socialist themes either, but are of popular genres. Rather than flicks about communism, there are comedies, musicals, love stories, and even horror flicks.

I once went to an action movie, with a title that translated as, “The Legend Lives”. The film stars Dustin Nguyen, who made his name as an American actor on the 1980’s teen cop show ’21 Jump Street’. Back then, he starred with none other than future movie star Johnny Depp. Nguyen left Vietnam as a child refugee, and in addition to his American acting career, he recently became a star in his former homeland as a 'Viet kieu', a returning Vietnamese. This local film is a martial arts movie with a message, and highlights a major problem in Vietnam today: human trafficking.

As we meet Nguyen’s character, he is mentally handicapped living in a Buddhist temple. His mother is a martial arts master, and she improbably tells him that his father is the great Bruce Lee.
 
It's eventually revealed that neither his mother, nor Bruce Lee are his real parents; his actual mom was a single mother exposed to agent orange. The slow witted but quick fisted young man later takes on human traffickers, when he witnesses them kidnapping a Vietnamese teenager. The gangsters aim to force the girl into prostitution. 

Vulnerable homeless man sleeps in Hanoi ATM booth

The movie has a happy ending and the teenage girl is saved, but the message to Vietnamese audiences is clear. In real life, human trafficking is indeed a major problem in Vietnam. Ironically, human trafficking has worsened in Vietnam due to the rise in individual freedoms, mainly the freedom to travel. Passports for Vietnamese used to be a rarity, now they're fairly common.  

With the opening of Vietnam’s borders, the rise of globalization, and with passports available to average citizens, conditions became ripe for human traffickers to take advantage of poor Vietnamese for their own profit. Many young people leave Vietnam every year, traveling overseas with hopes and dreams of finding better paid work. As a result, thousands of vulnerable Vietnamese women and girls have been forced into prostitution against their will, with many more trapped as forced laborers. They are trafficked not only within Vietnam, but also to numerous foreign countries. 

As to how many Vietnamese have been trafficked, nobody knows for sure. The government has admitted that 2,935 were victims of human trafficking during a five year period, but a spokesperson admitted the problem is worsening. The advocacy group Hagar International puts the number far higher. They say that 400,000 were human trafficking victims since 1990, which included men, women and children. 

In a 2003 ordinance passed for the prevention of prostitution, sex trafficking in Vietnam was outlawed. Recent laws have resulted in the conviction of hundreds of human traffickers, but the problem persists. As long as there is poverty and corruption in Vietnam, it will be difficult to eliminate the scourge of human trafficking.
 

IS THERE 'FREEDOM OF SPEECH' IN VIETNAM?

There is freedom to 'Rock-N-Roll' in today's Vietnam, just don't criticize the government

One afternoon I was traveling through Hanoi by taxi, when I saw a rare sight. Passing by a government building, I saw that a crowd of Vietnamese citizens had gathered out front. A mass of about 60 adult Vietnamese were all grouped together, seated on the ground, and totally silent. This is what passes for a demonstration in Vietnam. There were no speeches, no chanting, and no colorful banners advocating their cause. It was basically a public sit-in.

I would've liked to take a photo of the peaceful demonstrators, but I didn’t dare. There were no uniformed police, but plainclothes police were likely present, watching everyone and everything. Freedom of speech and public assemblies that criticize the government, can quickly get you in trouble here. Anti-government dissent is rarely tolerated in Vietnam. This demonstration could have been over any number of things: corruption, repression of religious sects, and unfair land confiscation have been common issues these days.

A peeking door looks into an old prison cell in Vietnam

When it comes to freedom in Vietnam, the good news is that they have come a long, long way since the dark days of the cold war. The bad news is that rights are still repressed, and they still have a long way to go.

Take the oddities of daily newspapers for example. With the reforms of doi moi, newspaper content has improved drastically. For the most part, communist dogma has been replaced with regular news articles. The national press now publishes many stories from western media verbatim, such as from Associated Press and Reuters. During my travels, I often read the national English language newspaper, ‘Viet Nam News’, and most stories printed within are indeed newsworthy. The format mostly mirrors western papers, with sections on world news, national news, business and sports. I even found stories covering NBA basketball.

Then there is what’s missing:

Internet access to foreign websites is better in Vietnam than in China

stories critical of the Vietnamese government are rare. Since Vietnam remains a one party system, the communist party is still the main source for government news. The occasional lead story about drab government policy shows the communist party still gets top billing when it so desires. Recent front page headlines include: “Performance key to evaluation of cadre: Party General Secretary.” Or this one: “Cultural exchange hailed as key to building Japan ties.”

Yawn…

As far as mass media goes, a recent step in the right direction, is that there are some privately owned publications. These periodicals tend to focus on fashion, lifestyle or business, rather than hard news. Newspapers, magazines and TV continue to be highly censored. To stay in business, most editors practice self-censorship to continue operating with government permission.
A foreign editor who published a monthly lifestyle magazine called “Asialife”, once explained to me his process of dealing with Vietnamese censorship. “Before it goes to the printer, we send the whole magazine in, and we have to have everything approved,” he told me. “We usually don’t have any problem. We get it back in about a week.”

The subject most notably absent from the daily news, is corruption. In a country where corruption is a top complaint, there are only infrequent stories about corrupt officials, and the occasional crackdowns. Of course, the communist party itself is aware that corruption is their biggest problem, but with so much money flowing into Vietnam’s rising economy, their current manners of dealing with it are like holding back the tide with a bucket. There is even less will on the part of the Vietnamese press to report on those who are arrested and convicted. Even the Chinese press to the north reports more often on their corruption crackdowns, than does the Vietnamese media.

Internet cafe in Vietnam, note that all those within are young people

When comparing Vietnam and China, one freedom that the Vietnamese have more of, is freedom on the internet. Most western websites are unblocked, and viewable within Vietnam. Internet usage has grown so fast, that even Google and Yahoo have Vietnamese language websites and services. But government IT censors do what they can to block many pro-democracy websites, as well as news stories and human rights websites critical of the Vietnamese government. In 2008, the Ministry of Information and Communication created a new agency tasked with monitoring the internet. Like China, they seek to filter out more anti-government information.

Bloggers have daringly tried to fill in the gap in independent news that is left by the traditional state dominated media. Unfortunately for local citizen journalists, Vietnam is not a good country to be a blogger. A select number of high profile bloggers who have been critical of the government have been arrested in recent years.

In 2008, prominent blogger Nguyen Van Hai, also known as Dieu Cay, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on tax evasion charges. Nguyen was the founder of the blogging group called the Union of Independent Journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that these charges were in reprisal for his blogging. With his conviction, Vietnamese bloggers are learning that exercising free speech online can lead to time in prison.