Sawt Falasteen - BBC says journalist questioned and blocked from leaving Vietnam

Vietnam -- a one-party state -- has no free media and clamps down hard on dissent, ranking among the world's leading jailers of journalists with 28 currently behind bars, Reporters Without Borders says.

The BBC said in a statement that an unnamed journalist "has been unable to leave Vietnam for several months as the authorities have withheld their ID card and their renewed passport".

"During this time our journalist was subject to multiple days of questioning by the authorities," added the statement published on Tuesday by the British broadcaster.

"The BBC journalist was in Vietnam for a routine passport renewal and to visit family," it said.

The foreign ministry of Vietnam did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Vietnam's leader To Lam landed in London this week to boost ties with Britain to "new heights", state media has reported.

Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates organisation, said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer should tell Lam "the UK-Vietnam relationship cannot be bolstered on the back of blatant violations of media freedom and human rights".

He told AFP the journalist had been "intensively interrogated" and said "failure to act now will likely condemn this journalist to face arrest and worse".

Last year, Vietnam sentenced journalist Nguyen Vu Binh to seven years in jail, accusing him of producing propaganda against the state.

In February, the country sentenced a leading independent journalist to 30 months in prison over Facebook posts that criticised the government.

U.Shaheen--SF-PST