So what did my husband, Anh Ba Sam, do?

Lê Thị Minh Hà - Due to health issues associated with Northern Vietnam’s weather, I have not been able to be with my husband as often as a wife should in the past years; however, what I know about him remains consistent that he is a patriot who loves his country with all his heart. Moreover, he is an intellect, a blogger who always believes in the importance of the Internet to the democratization and development processes of the country. He had always used the Internet as a tool to pursue his fervent wish to “empower, enlighten, and secure the people.”

Anh Ba Sam site (with the following addresses: basam.info, anhbasam.wordpress.com, anhbasamnews.info) was found in 2007 with the purpose of “breaking the chains of slavery.” He also uses that as the goal for the site. He believes that the people of Vietnam can only form political opinions once they are fully informed.

In that spirit, Anh Ba Sam on a daily basis gathered all daily news related to political issues, from many sources such as state-own media, foreign news agencies, activists, journalists, personal blogs, and even from websites deemed “traitors” and “opposing the state” by Vietnam government.

In addition, Anh Ba Sam also provide his readers with links to 50 top pages of famous bloggers and civil organizations in Vietnam, 50 independent and state-own news sites, and 56 foreign media sites along with 19 websites with guides to overcome Internet censorship. Features provided by blogging technologies have facilitated readers to write comments about whatever event they hear about.

According to various sources, my husband and his colleagues since 2009 have posted on the Internet a few hundred thousands articles, among which are valuable information on Vietnam history from 1945 to 1995, and writings from famous Vietnamese writers. Everyday, the average viewership ranges around 100,000 views.

It is very likely that Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP on the “management, provision, and the use of Internet services” was issued by the government to sensor Anh Ba Sam blog page. Paragraph 4 of Article 20 and Paragraph 4 of Article 26 of that Decree (effective September 1, 2013) prohibits blog and website owners in Vietnam from collecting information from the media or government sites. At the time, Anh Ba Sam was the only blog accessible to Vietnamese people which has a great volume of news data and such noticeable number of readers. According to Alexa.com ranking, Anh Ba Sam blog as of now is still among the web pages viewed the most by people in Vietnam.

Lê Thị Minh Hà
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