{"id":47536,"date":"2023-12-08T10:32:02","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T10:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=47536"},"modified":"2023-12-09T16:07:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T16:07:38","slug":"vietnamese-hrd-spend-international-hr-day-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnamese-hrd-spend-international-hr-day-behind-bars\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental and Human Rights Defenders in Vietnam spend International Human Rights Day behind bars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PARIS, 10 December 2023 (VCHR) – As the world marks the 75th<\/sup> Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) recalls that thousands of human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, climate change activists, workers\u2019 rights advocates and religious and political dissidents are imprisoned in countries all over the world for peacefully advocating the fundamental and inalienable rights enshrined in the UDHR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Vietnam, more than 200 prisoners of conscience are arbitrarily detained, often under harsh conditions in prisons far away from their homes for the \u201ccrime\u201d of advocating freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and freedom of religion or belief. Most were convicted at unfair trials under vaguely-worded \u201cnational security\u201d provisions in Vietnam\u2019s Criminal Code. Others, including six environmental rights leaders have been detained under politically-motivated charges of \u201ctax-evasion\u201d for engaging to protect the environment and promote a clean energy transition in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this 10 December, VCHR highlights the cases of ten prisoners of conscience who are detained in Vietnam in violation of international law. \u201cWe urge the international community to unite in condemning their arbitrary detention\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said VCHR President Penelope Faulkner, \u201cand call upon the government of Vietnam, which has a duty of exemplarity as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to respect its obligations under the UDHR and ensure the unconditional release of all persons detained for their peaceful exercise of internationally-recognized human rights\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dang<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u0110\u1eb7ng \u0110\u00ecnh B\u00e1ch<\/strong>, an environmental lawyer, Chair of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Centre (LPSD), was accused of \u201ctax evasion\u201d and sentenced to five years in prison at an unfair trial in Hanoi in January 2022. He is detained in Prison No. 6, Ngh\u1ec7 An province, where conditions are notoriously harsh. The authorities threaten to expel his wife and baby from their Hanoi home to retrieve the alleged tax money (see website <\/em>https:\/\/www.standwithbach.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hoang<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

H\u00f2ang Th\u1ecb Minh H\u1ed3ng <\/strong>is founder of CHANGE, an NGO advocating action on climate change, the environment and wild-life protection. She is a high-profile activist, Obama Foundation scholar, listed in 2019 by Forbes among the 50 most influential women in Vietnam. She was forced to close down CHANGE in 2022 after harassment by the government. H\u1ed3ng was arrested in June 2023 for \u201ctax evasion\u201d and sentenced to three years in prison in September 2023 at a trial that lasted only three hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pham<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ph\u1ea1m Ch\u00ed D\u0169ng<\/strong> is a journalist, founder of the Independent Journalists\u2019 Association of Vietnam (IJAV). He was arrested in 2019 after calling on the European Parliament to postpone ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement pending human rights progress in Vietnam. Charged with \u201cdisseminating information against the State\u201d<\/em> (Article 117 of the Criminal Code), he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in January 2021. He is currently detained in Xu\u00e2n L\u1ed9c prison camp in \u0110\u1ed3ng Nai province. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pham<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ph\u1ea1m\n\u0110oan Trang <\/strong>is\nan award-winning writer, journalist and pro-democracy advocate, founder of the\nonline magazine Lu\u1eadt Khoa <\/em>(Law). She has suffered frequent beatings in\npolice custody during her many years of activism. In 2020, Trang was arrested for\n\u201canti-State propaganda\u201d <\/em>and sentenced to nine years in prison at an\nunfair trial in Hanoi in December 2021.<\/em> She is detained in An Ph\u01b0\u1edbc Prison,\n1,500 km away from her home, and is reportedly in very poor health.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nguyen<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nguy\u1ec5n T\u01b0\u1eddng Th\u1ee5y<\/strong> is a journalist and blogger, Vice-President of the Independent Journalists\u2019 Association of Vietnam. He was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to 11 years in prison along with Ph\u1ea1m Ch\u00ed D\u0169ng in January 2021 charged with \u201canti-State propaganda\u201d.<\/em> He is currently detained An Ph\u01b0\u1edbc prison, 1,500 km from his home. He is over 70 years old and suffers from high blood-pressure.

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

\"Nguyen<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u1ecb T\u00e2m<\/strong> is a land rights activist. She has been imprisoned several times for demonstrating against state confiscation of lands. Arrested in 2020, she was charged with \u201canti-State propaganda\u201d <\/em>and sentenced to six years in prison in January December 2021. She is detained in Gia Lai prison, over 1,000 km from her home. She is suffering from uterine fibroids, but has been denied adequate medical treatment.

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

\"Truong<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tr\u01b0\u01a1ng Minh \u0110\u1ee9c<\/strong>, is a journalist and former prisoner of conscience. In 2007 he was jailed for five years for \u201cabusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state\u201d<\/em>. Arrested again in 2017, he stood trial with members of the Brotherhood for Democracy for \u201cactivities aimed to overthrow the people\u2019s administration\u201d<\/em> (Article 109 of the Criminal Code). He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He is currently detained in No. 6 Prison in Ngh\u1ec7 An province, 1,400 km away from his home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Can<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

C\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Th\u00eau<\/strong> is a leading land rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. She has suffered repeated assaults and harassment for her activism. In May 2021, she and her son Tr\u1ecbnh B\u00e1 T\u01b0 were sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of \u201canti-State propaganda\u201d <\/em> for engaging in land rights protests. Her other son, Tr\u1ecbnh B\u00e1 Ph\u01b0\u01a1ng received a 10-year sentence in December 2021.<\/em> She is currently detained in Prison No. 5 in Thanh H\u00f3a province <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tran<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tr\u1ea7n Bang<\/strong> (aka Tr\u1ea7n V\u0103n B\u00e0ng), is a pro-democracy activist. He has participated in demonstrations and written extensively on social media. In March 2022, he was arrested on charges of \u201canti-state propaganda\u201d <\/em>andcondemned to eight years in prison at a trial that lasted less than three hours. He was transferred to B\u1ed1 L\u00e1 Prison in September 2023. His family reports that his health has declined alarmingly due to harsh detention conditions and lack of access to medical care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nguyen<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh <\/strong>is a human rights defender. In 2017, she set up the 50K Fund to support prisoners of conscience and their families. The\nauthorities froze the account in 2020, and arrested her in April 2021 on\ncharges of \u201canti-state propaganda\u201d.<\/em> She is currently in pre-trial\ndetention in Hanoi. For the past year, she has been interned in a psychiatric\nfacility to treat depression. Her family have no information about what\ntreatment she is receiving, and say that her health has declined rapidly in\nrecent months.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS, 10 December 2023 (VCHR) – As the world marks the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) recalls that thousands of human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, climate change activists, workers\u2019 rights …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":47571,"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":[1685,1683,296,1688,1684,1687,1351,960,1686,433],"class_list":["post-47536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-can-thi-theu","tag-dang-dinh-bac","tag-hrd","tag-human-rights-day","tag-nguyen-thi-tam","tag-nguyen-thuy-hanh","tag-nguyen-tuong-thuy","tag-pham-chi-dung","tag-tran-bang","tag-truong-minh-duc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47536","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=47536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}