PARIS, 11 October 2023 (VCHR) – On October 11, 2023, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) made a joint submission with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) to the UN Human Rights Council for the fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Vietnam, which is scheduled to take place on 7 May 2024 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the submission, VCHR and FIDH document serious and systematic violations of human rights in Vietnam over the past four years, since Vietnam’s third UPR in 2019. These include a widespread crackdown on freedom of expression, with harassment, arrests and prosecution of human rights defenders and civil society activists; arbitrary detention of environmental rights defenders on politically-motivated charges of “tax evasion”; unfair trials, torture and ill-treatment in the prisons; increased legal restrictions on freedom of the press, internet freedom, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association and freedom of religion or belief; and increased use of the death penalty.
At its previous UPR, Vietnam accepted over 200 recommendations by UN member states to improve its human rights record. The submission details the government’s failure to implement these recommendations in every domain.
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