Newsletter closed down after harassment from Vietnamese officials

Peter Leech, the Australian publisher of Intellasia.com, has announced that his email newsletter has been closed down “under political duress,” Agence-France Presse reported today.

The newsletter carries mostly business news, but came under attack last month after reporting stories with political content, including articles about the court trials of Vietnamese political dissidents.

Vietnamese officials have harassed Leech, and have ordered the website “to close or face much more severe persecution.”

Leech states that “the political police (PA25) [are] illegally blocking Intellasia.com – which is located on a dedicated U.S.-based server and managed by a U.S. company.” The state media, on the other hand, reports that Intellasia.com “illegally operates a website without a license.”

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