\u201cPrincipled recommendations by UN member states on key human rights issues would send a strong message to Hanoi that its abuses haven\u2019t gone unnoticed and that the international community will continue to demand progress towards the implementation of institutional and legislative reforms,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said VCHR President Vo Van Ai.<\/p>\nFIDH and VCHR noted that since its previous UPR, the human rights situation in Vietnam has regressed in several key areas.<\/p>\n
Amendments made to the Criminal Code, which came into effect in January 2018, failed to remove vaguely worded \u2018national security\u2019 provisions. Instead, an additional \u2018national security\u2019 crime that carries the death penalty, \u2018terrorism against the state\u2019 (Article 113), was added. Vietnam also made no effort to limit the number of crimes punishable by death to \u201cthe most serious crimes,\u201d in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which it is a state party. Executions have continued in recent years, and authorities still classify death penalty statistics as \u201cstate secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of freedom of opinion and expression, the government intensified its crackdown on journalists, netizens, and bloggers. Contrary to recommendations made during its previous UPR, amended press legislation contains no provisions that allow for independent or privately owned newspapers and bans the diffusion of information perceived to be critical of the government.<\/p>\n
The government has also failed to implement recommendations that called for the removal of bureaucratic and administrative obstacles that hinder the enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion or belief. In addition, it introduced a new law that reinforced state management of religions and legalized intrusive state interference into religious affairs.<\/p>\n
With regard to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, all associative activities remain controlled by the state. Peaceful assemblies are heavily restricted and authorities continued to use Article 245 of the Criminal Code (now Article 318 \u2013 \u2018causing public disorder\u2019) to arrest, prosecute, and imprison high-profile activists and HRDs for exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly. A new Circular also allows the deployment of police \u201cto prevent the disturbance of public order\u201d and to arrest \u201copposition elements.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Press contacts
\n<\/strong>FIDH: Ms. Maryna Chebat (French, English) – Tel: +33648059157 (Paris)
\nFIDH: Mr. Andrea Giorgetta (English) – Tel: +66886117722 (Bangkok)
\nVCHR: Ms. Penelope Faulkner (Vietnamese, English, French) – Tel: +33611898681 (Paris)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS, 12 July 2018 (FIDH & VCHR) – UN member states must pressure the Vietnamese government to end its severe crackdown on dissent and make a genuine commitment to reforms ahead of Vietnam\u2019s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR), FIDH and its member organization Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) said today. FIDH and VCHR …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":39640,"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":[553,251],"class_list":["post-39628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-debbie-stothard","tag-upr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39628","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=39628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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