Hanoi (VNA) – The websitefreedomhouse.org recently posted the Freedom in the World 2018 report, which maintainedbiased views and misleading assessments, despite many countries’ opposition.

Released on January 16, the report covers 195countries, designating 88 countries as Free, 58 others as Partly Free, and theremaining 49, including Vietnam, as Not Free.

The report says that Vietnam completely lacksfreedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of access to informationand internet freedom.

However, all the content that Freedom Housementioned is opposite to reality in Vietnam, with the rights to freedomsensured and protected.

One piece of evidence is that the 2013Constitution devotes chapter two to the rights and fundamental obligations ofcitizens, instead of the fifth chapter as it was in the 1992 Constitution.

Lawmakers claimed this was not simply a changein arrangement but also a change in awareness, giving more prominence to thesovereignty of the people and considering the people the supreme subject of statepower.

Article 14 of the 2013 Constitution also readsthat: “In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, human rights and citizens' rightsin the political, civil, economic, cultural and social fields shall berecognised, respected, protected and guaranteed in accordance with theConstitution and law.”

Article 28 also affirms: “The State shall createthe conditions for citizens to participate in the management of the State andsociety; and shall publicly and transparently receive and respond to theopinions and petitions of citizens.”

The reality is that in Vietnam the peopleexercise state power by direct and representative democracy through theNational Assembly, People’s Councils and other agencies of the State. Theelection of deputies to the National Assembly and People’s Councils is carriedout in the principle of a universal, fair and direct manner and by secretballot. This was affirmed in the 1946 Constitution and has been ensured better andbetter through open elections.

In addition, all sessions where Governmentmembers answer questions from National Assembly deputies have been broadcastlive to viewers both at home and abroad.

On Freedomhouse.com, president of theorganisation Michael J. Abramowitz said: “Democracy’s basic tenets includeguarantees of free and fair elections, the rights of minorities, freedom of thepress, and the rule of law…” If so, which criteria and facts did thisorganisation use to determine this is not the case in Vietnam?

According to the Ministry of Information andCommunications, by mid-2017, Vietnam had had 982 printed newspapers andmagazines and 150 online newspapers with licenses. It currently has 182 radioand television channels along with 54 licensed foreign television channelsaired on pay television systems. There are 17,297 journalists with press cards.

In Vietnam, all trials are conducted in an openmanner, and journalists also have the right to attend and report on trials.

Statistics of the Next Web showed as of July 2017, Vietnamranked seventh in the world in the number of Facebook users with 64 million,accounting for 3 percent of the total active Facebook accounts worldwide. Thenumber of internet users in Vietnam was 45.5 million, or 48 percent of thepopulation, as of June 2015, ranking 6th in Asia.

Those figures spoke for themselves about the reality inVietnam.

In Vietnam, there are no so-called “dissidents”since every opinion is expressed freely and respected. However, any activity inany sovereign country must comply with that country’s law. In Vietnam, there isno suppression of “dissidents”; only law violations are brought to trialaccording to regulations, regardless of who the violators are.

Those who take advantage of freedom anddemocracy to infringe the freedoms and interests of the state, organisationsand other citizens should not be called “dissidents” or “protesters”.

A principle of freedom is to not violate otherpeople’s freedoms. Each country has its own standards and values selected andbuilt by that country’s people, providing that those standards do not runcounter to common international regulations and norms.

This means it is impossible to use the right tokeep and bear arms in the US to assess the countries which promote arms controlas lack of freedom. Using one person’s or one country’s criteria to evaluateothers is a brutal violation of freedom.

Freedom House has the right to make its ownassessments, provided that those assessments are based on real and scientificevidence and do not run counter to international norms and practices.

If anyone imposes his or her partial or evendistorted standards and views on other persons and countries, that is aviolation of freedom and worthless.

Freedom does not mean freedom of imposition.-VNA