{"id":38642,"date":"2018-03-14T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T14:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/?p=38642\/"},"modified":"2018-03-15T10:16:28","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T10:16:28","slug":"vietnam-denounced-before-unhrc-for-enforcing-rule-by-law-to-suppress-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-denounced-before-unhrc-for-enforcing-rule-by-law-to-suppress-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam denounced before UN Human Rights Council for stifling civil society and enforcing the \u201crule by law\u201d to suppress human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

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GENEVA, 14 March 2018 (VCHR) \u2013 Speaking on behalf of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/strong> (VCHR) and Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l\u2019Homme <\/strong>at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, VCHR President V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i <\/strong>denounced the escalation of repression against human rights defenders, bloggers, civil society activists and religious followers, and the use of restrictive legislation to constrain human rights and democratic freedoms in Vietnam. The UN Human Rights Council is meeting at its 37th<\/sup> Session from 26 February to 23 March 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cVietnam claims there are no political prisoners, only people who have \u201cviolated the law.\u201d But the fact is that Vietnam\u2019s domestic legislation is incompatible with international law,\u201d <\/em>V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i said before the Human Rights Council today. \u201cInstead of developing the rule of law, Vietnam is enforcing the rule by<\/u> law, by adopting a whole arsenal of legislation that nullifies human rights\u201d.<\/em> Of particular concern are vaguely-worded \u201cnational security\u201d provisions in the Criminal Code which are systematically invoked to detain political and religious dissidents, human rights defenders and civil society activists. Despite repeated appeals by the international community, Vietnam refused to review these national security provisions in the amended Criminal Code that came into force in January 2018.<\/p>\n

Repression against civil society is increasing, said Mr. \u00c1i, with an \u201cescalation of arrests and arbitrary convictions, growing police brutality, ill-treatment in police custody and increased use of the death penalty\u201d.<\/em> Over the past 14 months alone, 62 civil society activists have been arrested and condemned to harsh prison sentences, such as Dr. H\u1ed3 V\u0103n H\u1ea3i<\/strong>, arbitrarily sentenced to 4 years in prison and 2 years house arrest for \u201csimply denouncing the toxic effects of the Formosa waste spill which devastated Vietnam\u2019s central coastal waters. Bloggers M\u1eb9 N\u1ea5m<\/strong> and Tr\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Nga<\/strong>, sentenced to 10 and 9 years respectively, were transferred to prisons more than 1000 kilometres from their homes to prevent them receiving regular visits from their families. Both are mothers of young children.<\/p>\n

\u201cDissidents and civil society activists in prison are subjected to a particularly harsh regime. Not only are they sentenced at unfair trials, often without access to defence, but also suffer inhumane detention conditions, lack of medical care and denial of regular visits\u201d, <\/em>said V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i. \u201cThis cruel treatment is a violation of the UN Convention on Torture which Vietnam ratified \u2013 without the slightest intention of respecting, as it has done with all other UN human rights treaties.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Vietnam accepted recommendations by the international community to revise \u201cnational security\u201d provisions to bring them into line with international human rights law. However, in the amended Criminal Code, which came into force in January 2018, \u201cVietnam made no changes to these crimes except their numbers, and even added new punishments for the \u201cpreparation\u201d of such crimes,\u201d <\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. \u00c1i presented VCHR\u2019s new report to the Human Rights Council, entitled \u201cShrinking Spaces: Assessment of human rights in Vietnam during its 2nd<\/sup> Universal Periodic Review<\/a>\u201d.<\/em><\/strong> The report documents human rights abuses in Vietnam in view of its upcoming 3rd<\/sup> UPR scheduled for January 20118.<\/p>\n

In his statement to the Human Rights Council, Mr, \u00c1i expressed his deep concern for the situation of freedom of religion or belief in Vietnam. According to Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Vietnam is 5th<\/sup> on the list of countries with the highest number of communications on violations of religious freedom, and is among 10 countries listed globally as \u201chaving the most negative attitude towards freedom of religion or belief in the public and private domain\u201d.<\/em> In January 2018, immediately after Vietnam\u2019s new Law on Belief and Religion came into force, ten Hoa Hao Buddhists were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to 12 years.<\/p>\n

Under the Law on Belief and Religion, members of religious communities that are not registered with the state are especially vulnerable. The law requires mandatory registration and imposes strict controls on all religious activities. Religious communities which cannot, or choose not to register with the state risk grave repression. One salient example is the independent Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), whose leader Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9<\/strong> has spent 35 years in prison and under house arrest because he refuses to register the UBCV.<\/p>\n

UBCV leader Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9, a prominent dissident and human rights defender, maintains that mandatory registration is contrary to the principles of freedom of religion or belief, human rights and democracy. Speaking on the margins of the UN Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Ahmed Shaheed confirmed this vision, stating that \u201cthe respect of freedom of religion or belief is founded on the respect of human rights, pluralism and democracy. At the same time, there can be no freedom of religion or belief if human rights and democratic freedoms are denied\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i concluded his statement by calling on Vietnam to \u201crelease all prisoners of conscience and invite the UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders and freedom of opinion and expression to visit the country as soon as possible\u201d.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

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  GENEVA, 14 March 2018 (VCHR) \u2013 Speaking on behalf of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) and Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l\u2019Homme at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, VCHR President V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i denounced the escalation of repression against human rights defenders, bloggers, civil society activists and religious …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":38635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,113,98,64],"tags":[286,343,583,353,379,380,287,293],"class_list":["post-38642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-forb-2","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-ho-van-hai","tag-human-rights-council","tag-me-nam","tag-mother-mushroom","tag-religious-freedom-2","tag-tran-thi-nga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/434"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}