Vietnam gets a tongue-lashing

Hanoi – More than 80 international scholars have upbraided Vietnam’s Communist Party for condemning a prominent book publisher whose titles criticised socialism, a no-go zone in the Marxist country.

Vietnam is one of the world’s few surviving one-party states, and though it has embraced market reforms its politics on paper remain strictly socialist. The group of scholars issued a letter yesterday lending their support to publisher Chu Hao, 78.