Madame Vice-President,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AEDH and the\nVietnam Committee on Human Rights express their grave concern about systematic\nviolations of the right to freedom of religion or belief in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freedom of\nreligion or belief is a universal right, enshrined in Article 18 of the ICCPR.\nVietnam has been a state party to the Covenant for almost 40 years. Yet today, members\nof all religious communities continue to suffer harassments, intimidation,\nsurveillance, confiscation of property, arrest and imprisonment on account of\ntheir religious beliefs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vietnam\u2019s\nLaw on Belief and Religion is grossly inconsistent with international norms. Only\nstate-registered religious organizations have legal personality, whereas independent\ngroups such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, Protestant house\nchurches, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai or Khmer Krom Buddhists are outlawed and their\nactivities banned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At its third UPR this year, many states urged\nVietnam to bring the Law on Religion into line with international standards,\ncease repression of independent religious communities and release religious\nprisoners. Vietnam rejected these recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When my\nCommittee and several international NGOs echoed many states\u2019 concerns about\nreligious discrimination, Vietnam\u2019s head of delegation publicly accused us of\nbeing \u201cbiased and irresponsible\u201d. If we were in Vietnam, we would probably be in\nprison by now !<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is\ninadmissible that Vietnam treats civil society with such disdain. We contribute\nto the debates of this Council in a spirit of sincere dialogue. Vietnam should\nheed the voices of civil society inside and outside the country, and accept\ntheir contribution to building a just society in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you, Madame VicePresident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madame Vice-President, AEDH and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights express their grave concern about systematic violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief in Vietnam. Freedom of religion or belief is a universal right, enshrined in Article 18 of the ICCPR. Vietnam has been a state party to the Covenant for almost …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":41832,"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":[368,118],"tags":[250,286,288,251],"class_list":["post-41853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-forb","category-opinions","tag-aedh","tag-forb-2","tag-ubcv-2","tag-upr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41853","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=41853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}