HANOI - Vietnam has suspended a business magazine and is considering revoking the press credentials of all its reporters and editors in an ongoing crackdown on state-controlled media’s critical reporting, local news outlets reported on Sunday.
The Ministry of Culture and Information signed the decision to suspend Kinh Doanh & San Pham magazine on Sunday, according to the online newspaper VNExpress.
No time frame or specific reason was listed for the latest suspension, but the VNExpress article said the government had ruled the magazine to be “causing bad impacts on the society.”
On Friday, Vietnam suspended two newspapers, Thoi Dai and Cong Ly, for one month over articles that criticized the state bank’s printing of new polymer currency notes.
Six other publications are under investigation by the Ministry of Culture and Information for a series of articles reporting mistakes in the size and printing of the new bank notes.
All media in Vietnam is either state-owned or controlled by strict press laws that forbid “provoking people against the State of the Socialist Republic.”
Vietnam’s state bank began issuing polymer notes - which are longer-lasting than cotton-based paper notes - in 2003 in part to fight rampant counterfeiting.
