{"id":41191,"date":"2019-03-13T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=41191"},"modified":"2019-03-20T08:34:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T08:34:48","slug":"rfa-ngo-hits-back-at-vietnams-denials-of-rights-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/rfa-ngo-hits-back-at-vietnams-denials-of-rights-abuses\/","title":{"rendered":"[RFA] NGO Hits Back at Vietnam\u2019s Denials of Rights Abuses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Nguyen
Nguyen Khanh Ngoc (L), Vietnamese government delegate, addresses the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, March 11, 2019. UN Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n



<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RFA, 13\/3\/2019<\/a> – Assertions by Vietnam that it protects civil freedoms and human rights in the one-party communist state were sharply rebutted on Monday by a monitoring group at a U.N. review of the country\u2019s rights record held this week in Geneva, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking on\nMarch 11 at a hearing of the U.N. Human Rights Committee, a Paris-based rights\ngroup said that a Vietnamese government report to the Committee this year\nobscures \u201cglaring evidence\u201d of state abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMuch of the information in the report is obsolete,\u201d Vo Van Ai–president of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR)–told the U.N. Human Rights Committee<\/a>, a body created to check U.N. member states\u2019 compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMoreover,\nit denies glaring evidence of the government\u2019s brutal assault on civil society,\nescalation of arbitrary arrests and long prison sentences for all those who\nsimply advocate the rights enshrined in the ICCPR,\u201d Ai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rejecting\nVietnamese government claims to the Committee that provisions of the ICCPR take\nprecedence over domestic law in Vietnam, Ai noted that Vietnamese authorities\nhave \u201cemptied the Covenant of its substance by subordinating it to [the\ncountry\u2019s] Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[This]\nconditions the exercise of human rights on the \u2018interests of the state\u2019 and\n\u2018national security,\u2019\u201d and applies to all new laws adopted by Vietnam, Ai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese\nvague, catch-all \u2018national security\u201d provisions are in fact a legal veneer to\nsuppress human rights,\u201d Ai said, adding, \u201cThey make no distinction between\nviolent acts and the legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression,\nand transform peaceful human rights advocates into criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convictions\nunder Article 109 of Vietnam\u2019s criminal code, prohibiting \u201cactivities aimed at\noverthrowing the people\u2019s government,\u201d continue to increase, with citizens\ncalling for multi-party democracy and separation of government powers now\ndeemed guilty of subversion, Ai noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor\nVietnam, pluralism is synonymous with a threat to the existence of the\nCommunist Party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delayed\nreports, failures to comply<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though\nVietnam acceded to the ICCPR in 1982, it has now reported on its compliance\nwith that human rights instrument only three times, Ai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy\ndelaying its reports over decades, Vietnam is not only failing to comply with\nUN reporting obligations, but also seriously undermining opportunities to\nstrengthen protection of its citizens\u2019 civil and political rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week\u2019s\nmeeting in Geneva follows a meeting in January by the larger U.N. Human Rights\nCouncil, a separate body, in which Vietnam defended its rights record, calling\nthe ensuring of human rights its \u201ctop priority\u201d and denying it is arresting\nrights defenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.N. Human\nRights Council documents on Vietnam, however, record mounting concern over\nrecent years about arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reported by RFA\u2019s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/em><\/strong>


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nguyen Khanh Ngoc (L), Vietnamese government delegate, addresses the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, March 11, 2019. UN Photo RFA, 13\/3\/2019 – Assertions by Vietnam that it protects civil freedoms and human rights in the one-party communist state were sharply rebutted on Monday by a monitoring group at a U.N. review of the country\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":41187,"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":[113,60],"tags":[813,789,792,222,814,816,817,815,793],"class_list":["post-41191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news","category-press-review","tag-ccpr125-2","tag-human-rights-2","tag-human-rights-committee","tag-iccpr","tag-nguyen-khanh-ngoc-2","tag-rfa-2","tag-richard-finney","tag-vchr-2","tag-vo-van-ai-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41191","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=41191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}