<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr.\nPresident, Distinguished Experts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you\nfor giving the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights the opportunity to testify today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exactly 17\nyears ago, I was here in this same room, at the review of Vietnam\u2019s second\nperiodic report on the ICCPR. I raised my serious human rights concerns in an\nin-depth report. Many of these were taken up by the Committee in their\nConcluding Observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am here\ntoday to present a new report. Unfortunately, it repeats many of my previous\nconcerns, because many of the Committee\u2019s recommendations were not taken into\naccount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most urgent problem is that of \u201cnational security\u201d. The government informed the Committee that the Covenant has primacy over domestic law in Vietnam. But in practice, the authorities have emptied the Covenant of its substance by it subordinating it to the Constitution, which conditions the exercise of human rights on the \u201cinterests of the state\u201d and \u201cnational security\u201d. This conditionality is included in all new laws adopted by Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These\nvague, catch-all \u201cnational security\u201d provisions are in fact a legal veneer to\nsuppress human rights. They make no distinction between violent acts and the\nlegitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression, and transform\npeaceful human rights advocates into criminals. Under these provisions, despite\nthe recommendations of the Committee in 2002, pre-trial detention may be\nprolonged indefinitely, and lawyers are obliged to denounce their own clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently,\nthe number of convictions under Article 109 of the Criminal Code on \u201cactivities\naimed at overthrowing the people\u2019s government\u201d have literally exploded, with\ntwo convictions in 2016, six in 2017 and 15 in 2018. This crime, which carries\nthe death penalty, is used to sanction all advocacy of multi-party democracy\nand the separation of powers. For Vietnam, pluralism is synonymous with a threat\nto the existence of the Communist Party. Whosoever speaks out for pluralism is\ntherefore guilty of \u201csubversion\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Law on\nBelief and Religion violates Article 18 of the ICCPR. Religious freedom is a\nuniversal and inalienable right. Registration should be thus be optional, not\nmandatory, whereas this law protects only religious groups which are recognized\nby the State. Since the law came into effect, members of non-registered groups\nsuch as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) have suffered increasing\nharassments, intimidation and detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding\nthe death penalty, although the number of crimes punishable by death has been\nreduced, the number of death sentences has significantly increased. The\ngovernment announced that there were 122 more sentences in 2018 than in 2017.\nThe total number of sentences and executions is unknown because they are\nclassed by the government as \u201cstate secrets\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you for your attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. President, Distinguished Experts, Thank you for giving the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights the opportunity to testify today. Exactly 17 years ago, I was here in this same room, at the review of Vietnam\u2019s second periodic report on the ICCPR. I raised my serious human rights concerns in an in-depth report. Many of these …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":41094,"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":[118],"tags":[792,222],"class_list":["post-41082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-opinions","tag-human-rights-committee","tag-iccpr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41082","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=41082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}