\u201cVietnam held Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i and L\u00ea Thu H\u00e0 in jail for two years before subjecting them to this gruesome mockery of justice\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said VCHR President V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i. \u201cEveryone feared that this trial would be unfair, but we hoped against all odds that Vietnam would change its ways. These hopes \u2013 and the future of these brave human rights defenders \u2013 were dashed today when these crushing sentences were announced\u201d.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i <\/strong>called on the international community to take strong action in face of Vietnam\u2019s systematic violations of its binding human rights commitments. In particular, he called on the European Union to freeze ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement that is planned to be signed this year. Indeed, Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i was arrested in December 2015 as he was about to meet EU diplomats in Hanoi for the EU-Vietnam annual human rights dialogue. \u201cVietnam cannot be allowed to repress its citizens with impunity. The international community should make it clear that it will not continue \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d with Vietnam unless concrete human rights improvements are made, beginning with the release of Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i and his colleagues\u201d,<\/em><\/strong> he said.<\/p>\n The Paris-based VCHR also called on French President Emmanuel Macron to publicly condemn this outrageous verdict and insist that concrete human rights progress must be made before France develops its relationship with Vietnam. During the visit of Communist Party Secretary-general Nguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng to France last month, President Macron hailed Hanoi\u2019s \u201cimportant reforms to build the rule of law\u201d<\/em> and called for increased cooperation and commercial exchange.<\/p>\n Brotherhood for Democracy is an independent civil society organization that promotes human rights through online actions and coordinates the efforts of various pro-democracy actors in the country. Charges laid against them at their trial included advocating for the establishment of a free market economy and a democratic government, calling on international organizations to speak out against human rights violations, and giving legal support to dispossessed farmers and victims of the Formosa pollution disaster. The arrest of Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i and his colleagues has been strongly denounced by the UN, democratic governments and civil society organizations worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PARIS, 5th April 2018 (VCHR) \u2013 The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) is outraged by the sentences handed down on six peaceful activists today by the Supreme People\u2019s Court in Hanoi at a one-day trial that violated all international standards. Human rights lawyer Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i was sentenced to 15 years in prison …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":38821,"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":[],"class_list":["post-38820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38820","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=38820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/queme.org\/\/app\/uploads\/2018\/04\/2018-0505az.jpg\")
<\/p>\n