<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/queme.org\/\/app\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Logos-FIDH-LDH-VCHR-2018a.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Hon. Emmanuel Macron
\nPresident of France
\nPalais de l\u2019\u00c9lys\u00e9e
\nRue du Faubourg Saint-Honor\u00e9
\n75008 Paris
\nFrance<\/p>\n
Paris, le 24 March 2018<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
OPEN LETTER<\/h2>\nto the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron
\non the visit of Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary
\nNguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng<\/h3>\n
\non the visit of Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary
\nNguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr. President,<\/p>\n
You have invited the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Mr. Nguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng, to visit France from 25 \u2013 27 March 2018 to mark the 45th<\/sup> Anniversary of Franco-Vietnamese diplomatic relations and the 5th<\/sup> anniversary of the Strategic Partnership between France and Vietnam. With this official visit, you are receiving the head of a political party \u2013 the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) \u2013 with the honours due to a head of state.<\/p>\n Needless to say, the CPV is not simply a political party. It is the only legally recognized party in Vietnam, which has recently prohibited its members from discussing democracy, the separation of powers, and pluralism, or face expulsion.<\/p>\n You have centered your mandate on the active participation of civil society in the nation\u2019s political affairs. The man you receive today represents a regime whose aim is the very opposite \u2013 to stifle civil society voices and destroy its citizens\u2019 aspirations to manifest any interest in public affairs, other than by applauding the opaque decisions of their rulers. He is the man who declared that \u201cCommunism is better than democracy\u201d.<\/em> In light of the current crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression in Vietnam \u2013 one of the worst since the country\u2019s economic opening under the \u201c\u0110\u1ed5i M\u1edbi\u201d policy in 1986 \u2013 Mr. Tr\u1ecdng is clearly referring to the security and police apparatus that is the last vestige of a totalitarian state.<\/p>\n Repression against civil society in Vietnam is deliberate and well-organized. While claiming to develop the \u201crule of law\u201d, Vietnam is reinforcing the \u201crule by <\/em>law\u201d by adopting extensive legislation that criminalizes the exercise of fundamental rights. Vaguely-worded \u201cnational security\u201d provisions of the Criminal Code are the backbone of the government\u2019s repression against dissidents, bloggers, citizen journalists, human rights defenders, and members of \u201cnon-recognized\u201d religious communities. At the United Nations, during Vietnam\u2019s Universal Periodic Review in 2014, France called for the repeal or amendment of national security provisions to ensure they did not restrict freedom of opinion and expression. Vietnam took no such action.<\/p>\n Under this cloak of so-called \u201clegality\u201d, the Vietnamese government has arrested, prosecuted, and arbitrarily imprisoned scores of civil society activist \u2013 62 in the past 14 months alone. At least 130 prisoners of conscience languish in Vietnam\u2019s jails today. They include blogger and former CPV member Nguy\u1ec5n H\u1eefu Vinh (sentenced to five years in prison), human rights defenders M\u1eb9 N\u1ea5m Nguy\u1ec5n Ng\u1ecdc Nh\u01b0 Qu\u1ef3nh and Tr\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Nga (10 and nine years in prison, respectively). Both M\u1eb9 N\u1ea5m and Nga, who are mothers of young children, were recently transferred to a prison more than 1,000 kilometers from their homes to prevent them from receiving visits. Social rights activist Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n Oai (sentenced to five years in prison) has also been sent to a prison far from his home. Human rights lawyer Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i, arrested in December 2015, has spent over two years in pre-trial detention on charges of \u201cattempting to overthrow the people\u2019s government\u201d, a crime which carries the death penalty.<\/p>\n Religious freedom is restricted by a draconian, mandatory system of registration. Religious communities not registered with the state, such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), are subjected to daily repression and harassments. UBCV leader Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 remains under house arrest after more than 35 years of various forms of arbitrary detention. Ethnic minority Christians (Hmong, Montagnards), Cao Dai, Hoa Hao Buddhists (ten of whom were recently sentenced to prison sentences of up to 12 years) are the targets of repression simply for exercise their right to freedom of religion.<\/p>\n Vietnam\u2019s suppression of civil society is not only a blatant violation of fundamental rights, but it has dramatic consequences on the daily lives of ordinary people. With no free press, no free trade unions, no independent civil society and no independent judiciary in Vietnam, people have no means to defend themselves or express their grievances. For example, in April 2016, Vietnam\u2019s central coast was struck by one of the worst ever industrial pollution disasters. Toxic waste spill from the Formosa steel plant contaminated over 200 kilometers of coastal waters, causing the deaths of hundreds of tons of fish and destroying the livelihood of local people, whose survival depends on fishing. The victims received no compensation, and those who filed complaints or even expressed concern were harshly repressed. Medical doctor H\u1ed3 V\u0103n H\u1ea3i, who simply wrote on his blog about the serious consequences of pollution on people\u2019s health, was arrested and recently sentenced to four years in prison and two years\u2019 house arrest on charges of \u201cpropaganda against the State\u201d.<\/p>\n Protesting poor working conditions in Vietnam is also taboo. A recent report on the working conditions of women in the electronics industry revealed violations of worker rights leading to serious health problems such as miscarriages, fainting, and extreme fatigue. The report\u2019s author, Ms. Ph\u1ea1m Th\u1ecb Minh H\u1eb1ng, was subsequently threatened and harassed by the authorities. Female workers were threatened with lawsuits if they talked to people outside their company about working conditions.<\/p>\n Mr. President,<\/p>\n We do not deny the importance of developing relationships between France and Vietnam. But this relationship must not entail the sacrifice of France\u2019s principles as the birthplace of human rights, nor the well-being of the Vietnamese people. You cannot receive a dictator such as Mr. Nguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng without using all your authority to insist that Vietnam upholds its commitment to the international community to respect and guarantee human rights.<\/p>\n It is essential that France speaks out loud and clear to urge Vietnam to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience, cease harassments, beatings and all other forms of intimidation against civil society activists and human rights defenders and end religious persecution. Vietnam should also take steps to progressively dismantle its arsenal of anti-human rights legislation. To remain silent on these crucial issues would cause deep disappointment to civil society in Vietnam.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PARIS 24 March 2018 (VCHR) \u2013 Three France-based human rights organizations, the FIDH, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) and the League for Human Rights (LDH) have sent an Open Letter to French President Emmanuel Macron on the occcasion of the visit of Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng to France …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":38691,"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":[286,583,379,378,287,671,293],"class_list":["post-38696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-forb-2","tag-ho-van-hai","tag-me-nam","tag-nguyen-ngoc-nhu-quynh","tag-religious-freedom-2","tag-thich-quang-do-2","tag-tran-thi-nga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38696","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=38696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n \n
\nPresident, FIDH<\/div>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nPresident, VCHR<\/div>\n<\/td>\n\n
\nPresident, LDH<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n