{"id":47131,"date":"2023-04-07T13:46:15","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=47131"},"modified":"2023-04-07T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T17:32:13","slug":"eu-delegation-raises-serious-human-rights-concerns-during-visit-to-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/eu-delegation-raises-serious-human-rights-concerns-during-visit-to-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Delegation raises serious human rights concerns during visit to Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PARIS 7\nApril 2023 (VCHR) \u2013 A delegation of Members of the European Parliament visiting\nVietnam from 4 \u2013 6 April 2023 expressed serious concerns about violations of social\nand political rights including freedom of expression and association, Internet\nfreedom, freedom of religion or belief and repression of human rights and\nenvironmental rights defenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recalling\nthat Vietnam had committed to improve human rights as part of the EU-Vietnam\nFree Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the delegation said they were \u201cdeeply\ndisappointed\u201d<\/em> that the government had failed to deliver on its promises, and\nobserved  that there had been absolutely\nno improvement in human rights since EVFTA came into force almost three years\nago, on 1 August 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cross party delegation was made up of members of the European Parliament\u2019s Subcommittee on human rights, led by its Chairman Udo Bullmann (S&D, Germany) and including Gheorghe-Vlad Nistor (EPP, Rumania), Leopoldo L\u00f3pez Gil (EPP, Spain), Isabel Santos (S&D, Portugal), Nacho S\u00e1nchez Amor (S&D, Spain) and Urmas Paet (Renew, Estonia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a Press Conference in Hanoi on Thursday, Mr. Bullmann said the delegation were particularly concerned about \u201cthe shrinking space for civil society, abuse of the vague provisions of the criminal code to suppress critical voices, harassment of  activists, repression of freedom of expression, notably in the online space, and of freedom of religion and belief.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They raised the cases\nof several political and religious prisoners with the Vietnamese authorities,\ndeploring the lack of access to a fair trial, and called for the \u201cimmediate\nand unconditional release of all political prisoners and prisoners of\nconscience in Vietnam, including NGO leaders, journalists and environmental\nactivists.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a separate interview, MEP Nacho S\u00e1nchez Amor<\/strong> said that the mission conducted by the EP Human Rights Sub-committee was \u201cvery much related to trade. In the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) there is a chapter dedicated to democratic conditionalities. We decided to come to the country to examine what is the current status of improvements and the commitments made by the Vietnamese authorities when they signed the free trade agreement.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas the delegation\n\u201cobserved that the trade aspects of the agreement are running more or less\nwell\u201d, <\/em>Sanchez Amor said that \u201cconcerning the respect of human rights\nand democratic reforms we are very, very disappointed. There is no progress, no\nimprovement in human rights, no freedom of expression. Non-governmental\norganizations have a lot of problems in conducting their activities. We could\nnot see any openness or willingness of the Vietnamese authorities to respect\nthe commitments that they made when signing EVFTA.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEP S\u00e1nchez Amor said the visit enabled the EP delegation to have a clearer overall picture of the human rights situation in Vietnam. \u201cThere are certain areas where we can work together with the government \u2013 there is political will to deal with child labour and human trafficking, that\u2019s clear. But other aspects such as the general situation of human rights, the activities of NGOs, the space for civil society is clearly curtailed. There is no apparent political will whatsoever to advance on political reforms. This is why we are so disappointed, because these political reforms are an integral part of the free trade agreement to which we are both committed\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spanish MEP added\nthat the delegation was very concerned about worker rights, which constitute an\nessential element of EVFTA\u2019s Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter. \u201cWe\ninsisted strongly about Vietnam\u2019s promises to ratify ILO Convention 87\nconcerning the creation on independent trade unions. But so far we cannot see\nany steps that Vietnam is taking to deliver on these promises.\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delegation was able to meet with non-state actors, including some representatives of civil society. But \u201cfor obvious reasons\u201d,<\/em> S\u00e1nchez Amor said, he could not disclose the names of their interlocutors. During the last visit of the EP Human Rights Subcommittee in 2017<\/a>, civil society activists were subjected to harassments, threats and tightened Police surveillance after meeting the EP delegation. —<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS 7 April 2023 (VCHR) \u2013 A delegation of Members of the European Parliament visiting Vietnam from 4 \u2013 6 April 2023 expressed serious concerns about violations of social and political rights including freedom of expression and association, Internet freedom, freedom of religion or belief and repression of human rights and environmental rights defenders. Recalling …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":47139,"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":[756,1430,634,343,1625,265,1627,1626,1623,1624,1628],"class_list":["post-47131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-civil-society","tag-ep-subcommittee-on-hr","tag-evfta","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-gheorghe-vlad-nistor","tag-internet-freedom","tag-isabel-santos","tag-leopoldo-lopez-gil","tag-nacho-sanchez-amor","tag-udo-bullmann","tag-urmas-paet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131","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=47131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}