<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PARIS, 17 February 2020 (VCHR & FIDH) – The European Union (EU) must use the upcoming human rights dialogue with Vietnam\u2019s government to demand an end to its crackdown on civil society, the amendment of repressive laws, and the immediate release of all political prisoners, FIDH and its member organization Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) urged today. The two organizations made the call ahead of the ninth EU-Vietnam human rights dialogue, which is set to be held on 19 February 2019 in Hanoi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a new briefing paper released today<\/a>, FIDH and VCHR detailed their human rights concerns in six key areas: 1) Escalating crackdown on dissent; 2) Repressive \u201cnational security\u201d laws; 3) Labour rights; 4) Land disputes; 5) Inhumane prison conditions and deaths in custody; and 6) The death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are concerned\nthat the EU\u2019s recent approval of trade benefits for Vietnam despite its dismal\nhuman rights record is likely to embolden Hanoi to continue its crackdown on\ncivil society. The EU must seek concrete actions from the Vietnamese government\nto ensure that serious human rights violations don’t become \u2018business as\nusual\u2019,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>said FIDH Secretary-General Adilur Rahman Khan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since last year\u2019s\nEU-Vietnam human rights dialogue, held on 4 March 2019, Vietnamese authorities\nhave continued to harass, assault, and detain human\nrights defenders, labour rights defenders, land and environmental rights\ndefenders, bloggers, journalists, government critics, and religious followers. Between 5 March 2019 and 2 February 2020, Vietnamese authorities\narrested 29 human rights activists\n(including three women) and sentenced 42 (including five women) to prison terms\nof up to 12 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Vietnamese\ngovernment has justified its ongoing crackdown by invoking clauses in the 2015\nCriminal Code that criminalize activities deemed to threaten \u201cnational\nsecurity.\u201d These vaguely-worded provisions \u2014 six of which carry the death\npenalty as maximum sentence \u2014 make no distinction between violent crimes and\nthe peaceful and legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and\nexpression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Vietnamese\ngovernment\u2019s lack of commitment to respect its international obligations is\nextremely disturbing, especially at this critical time in EU-Vietnam relations.\nWe urge the EU to ensure that the upcoming human rights dialogue contains\nspecific, measurable, and time-bound objectives,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>said VCHR\nPresident Vo Van Ai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many human rights\nviolations in Vietnam are committed in the context of land disputes. The\nauthorities have consistently adopted a vicious and violent approach to the\nresolution of these disputes. The latest instance of this trend was the \u0110\u1ed3ng\nT\u00e2m incident, which resulted in the death of at least one civilian last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite being a state\nparty to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading\nTreatment or Punishment, Vietnam has failed to improve detention conditions.\nReports of torture, ill-treatment, and deaths in police custody continued to be\nwidely reported in 2019. Several prisoners died last year as a result of harsh\ndetention conditions that may have amounted to torture or ill-treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to the\ndeath penalty, Vietnam continues to apply the death penalty for a range of\noffenses that do not meet the threshold of the \u201cmost serious crimes,\u201d while\nstatistics on death sentences and executions continue to be classified as\n\u201cstate secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Press contacts:<\/strong> PARIS, 17 February 2020 (VCHR & FIDH) – The European Union (EU) must use the upcoming human rights dialogue with Vietnam\u2019s government to demand an end to its crackdown on civil society, the amendment of repressive laws, and the immediate release of all political prisoners, FIDH and its member organization Vietnam Committee on Human Rights …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":42223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"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":[312,805],"class_list":["post-42218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-death-penalty","tag-eu-vietnam-dialogue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42218","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=42218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
FIDH: Mr. Andrea Giorgetta (English) – Tel: +66886117722 (Bangkok)
FIDH: Ms. Eva Canan (French, English) – Tel: +33648059157 (Paris)
VCHR: Ms. Penelope Faulkner (Vietnamese, English, French) – Tel: +33611898681 (Paris) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"