{"id":48422,"date":"2024-03-07T20:22:57","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T20:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=48422"},"modified":"2024-04-19T14:00:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T14:00:17","slug":"the-women-vietnam-wants-the-world-to-forget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/the-women-vietnam-wants-the-world-to-forget\/","title":{"rendered":"International Women\u2019s Day: the Women Vietnam wants the world to forget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PARIS, 8 March 2024 (VCHR) – As the world celebrates International Women\u2019s Day on 8th<\/sup> March and Vietnam bids for a second term on the UN Human Rights Council, the voices of women calling for change in Vietnam are systematically and arbitrarily suppressed. The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR)<\/strong> wishes to pay tribute today to the scores of women languishing in Vietnam\u2019s prisons on account of their actions for human rights, and the hundreds of everyday \u201csheroes\u201d – the wives, mothers and daughters of prisoners of conscience who face harassments and intimidation as they struggle to feed their families and support their loved ones, often imprisoned hundreds of miles away from their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are at least 200 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, more than 30 of whom are women. Vietnam claims that these women have \u201cthreatened national security\u201d<\/em> or \u201ccaused harm to the nation\u201d.<\/em> In reality, they were arrested and prosecuted in violation of the Vietnamese Constitution, national legislation and international human rights law, simply for peacefully advocating fundamental rights, social justice and a clean and healthy environment. This systematic stifling of dissenting voices reflects a long-standing and consistent policy, formulated at the top echelons of the Communist Party of Vietnam, to suppress human rights and subvert democratic freedoms. This policy was updated and explained in intricate detail in the Politburo\u2019s secret Directive 24, revealed in a recent report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy stifling these essential voices, Vietnam is not only violating its\nbinding international commitments, but also jeopardizing its own future\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said VCHR\nVice-President V\u00f5 Tr\u1ea7n Nh\u1eadt. \u201cA clean environment cannot be built without\nenvironmentalists, a society respectful of human rights cannot exist without\nhuman rights defenders\u201d. <\/em><\/strong>He added: \u201cThe Tr\u01b0ng Sisters, who fought\nfor Vietnam\u2019s independence from Chinese domination in 40 AD are celebrated as \u2018national\nheroines\u2019. If they had lived today, the Tr\u01b0ng sisters would probably be behind\nbars.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We highlight below portraits of some of the courageous women Vietnam wants the world to forget. Some are high profile, others less well-known. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of these women, along with all those who are arbitrarily detained in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh: suffering cancer treatment in detention<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh, born in 1963, is a business woman and human rights defender. In 2016, she ran as an independent candidate in the National Assembly, and since then has been consistently harassed. In 2017, she set up the \u201c50K Fund\u201d to support prisoners of conscience and their families, raising over 20,000 $US to support the victims of a land-rights clash in Dong T\u00e2m village. The authorities froze the account in 2020, and arrested her in April 2021 on charges of \u201canti-state propaganda\u201d <\/em>(Article 117 of the Criminal Code).Since April 2022, Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh has been detained at the Hanoi Central Institute of Forensic Psychiatry for compulsory treatment of depression, where she shares a 15m\u00b2 room with seven inmates, most of whom have committed serious crimes. The treatment was ordered by authorities with no informed consent from Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh or her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2024, she was diagnosed with stage 2 cervical cancer<\/a>. Her treatment consists of five sessions of radiation therapy and one session of chemotherapy per week. Every weekday afternoon, she is transported from detention at the Central Institute of Forensic Psychiatry to Hospital K for the treatment. Her husband, Hu\u1ef3nh Ng\u1ecdc Ch\u00eanh, who is only allowed to see his wife briefly, says she is in great pain when she returns to the detention centre, and often cannot keep down her food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continued\ndetention of Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u00fay H\u1ea1nh is inhumane and also a violation of Vietnamese\nlaw. Articles 29b and Article 62 of the 2015 Criminal Code stipulate that prisoners\nsuffering from terminal illnesses are exempt from serving prison sentences and Article\n67 of the Code states that those who contract severe illnesses in detention \u201care\nexempt from serving prison sentences until recovery\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u0110\u1ecbnh Th\u1ecb Thu Thu\u1ef7: seven years in prison for \u201csatirizing\u201d the Communist Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u0110\u1ecbnh Th\u1ecb Thu Thu\u1ef7,born in 1982, is an environmental activist and an aquaculture engineer from the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. She holds a master\u2019s degree in aquatic pathology. In June 2018, she was temporarily arrested and beaten by Police for participating in peaceful demonstrations against the Law on Special Economic Zones and the Law on Cybersecurity. An advocate of free expression, Th\u1ee7y used social media to criticize the government\u2019s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the \u201cFormosa\u201d pollution scandal and other social issues. She also posted satirical poems by her father on an anti-corruption campaign launched by the Vietnamese President and Secretary-general of the ruling Communist Party, Nguy\u1ec5n Ph\u00fa Tr\u1ecdng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 18 April 2020, she was arrested on charges of \u201csatirizing and ridiculing\u201d<\/em> the Party leadership, and detained incommunicado in H\u1eadu Giang Detention Centre for almost eight months, with no access to legal counsel. At a hearing on January 21 2021 that lasted only four hours, she was sentenced to seven years in prison<\/strong> on charges of \u201cmaking, storing or spreading information, materials or items for the purpose of opposing the State\u201d,<\/em> (Article 117 of the 2015 Criminal Code). The only evidence brought against her were five Facebook posts which received only 130 \u201cLikes\u201d and 50 \u201cShares\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 8-month pre-trial detention, Th\u1ee7y\u2019s mental and physical health deteriorated. The prison authorities refused to let her see her son, and subjected her to extremely harsh detention conditions. She was briefly hospitalised in 2021 for heart problems. \u0110\u1ecbnh Th\u1ecb Thu Thu\u1ef7 is currently detained in An Ph\u01b0\u1edbc prison in B\u00ecnh D\u01b0\u01a1ng Province. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tr\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Tuy\u1ebft Di\u1ec7u: a blogger who \u201charmed the nation\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Tr\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Tuy\u1ebft Di\u1ec7u born in 1988, is a journalist and blogger. She worked at the local State-run newspaper in her home province of Ph\u00fa Y\u00ean before being forced by the paper to resign in 2017. She moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 2019 and worked as an independent journalist, using social media and other online platforms to post stories about official corruption and other social issues. In 2020, she was abruptly arrested as she visited her parents in Ph\u00fa Y\u00ean and charged with \u201cdefaming\u201d the party\u2019s leadership, and \u201cslandering\u201d revolutionary history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a three-hour trial on 22 March 2021, she was convicted of \u201cpropaganda against the State\u201d (Article 117 of the Criminal Code). She pleaded innocence, saying that her blogs had harmed no-one. The court replied that they had \u201ccaused harm to the nation\u201d.<\/em> According to her lawyer, this is a tactic commonly used by the courts in Vietnam to avoid producing specific harmed persons as witnesses during trials. She was sentenced to eight years in prison. <\/strong>The verdict was upheld on appeal in September 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ng\u00f4\nTh\u1ecb T\u1ed1 Nhi\u00ean: victim of the government\ncrackdown on environmental rights defenders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Ng\u00f4 Th\u1ecb T\u1ed1 Nhi\u00ean, 48, is a researcher and consultant, Executive Director of the prominent think tank Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise (VIETSE). She had formerly worked for several ministries in Vietnam and international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Union, USAID and the United Nations, and was currently working on the implementation plan for Vietnam\u2019s just energy transition partnership (JETP), a 15.5 billion USD project funded by G7 to help reduce the country\u2019s reliance on fossil fuels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 15 September 2023, three months after the arrest of H\u00f2ang Th\u1ecb Minh H\u1ed3ng (see below), <\/em>she was arrested and charged with \u201cappropriating, trading, destruction (\u2026) of documents of a state agency or organization\u201d<\/em> (Article 342 of the 2015 Criminal Code). Police raided VIETSE\u2019s offices and later forced the organisation to close down. Ms. Nhi\u00ean\u2019s arrest has been widely denounced as arbitrary and politically-motivated, another step in the government crack-down on environmental rights defenders in Vietnam. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison. <\/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<\/strong> 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 \u0110oan Trang <\/strong>is an award-winning writer, journalist and pro-democracy advocate, founder of the online magazine Lu\u1eadt Khoa<\/em>. She has suffered frequent beatings in police custody during her many years of activism. In 2020, Trang was arrested for \u201canti-State propaganda\u201d <\/em>and sentenced to nine years in prison<\/strong> at an unfair trial in Hanoi in December 2021.<\/em> She is detained in An Ph\u01b0\u1edbc Prison, 1,500 km away from her home, and is reportedly in very poor health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

C\u1ea5n 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, C\u1ea5n Th\u1ecb Th\u00eau and her son Tr\u1ecbnh B\u00e1 T\u01b0 were sentenced to eight years in prison<\/strong> on charges of \u201canti-State propaganda.\u201d <\/em>Her other son,Tr\u1ecbnh B\u00e1 Ph\u01b0\u01a1ng was also sentenced to 10 years in prison in December 2021 for engaging in land rights protests.<\/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 Th\u1ecb Xu\u00e2n, <\/strong>born in 1976, is a human rights defender and member of the Brotherhood for Democracy.She was actively engaged in charity work in her local Catholic community, and spoke out against the 2016 Formosa steel plant pollution disaster. She was arrested on 17 October 2017 and charged under Article 79 (now 109) of the Criminal Code for \u201ccarrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people\u2019s administration.\u201d<\/em> She was held incommunicado for five months before her trial on 12 April 2018, and had no lawyer or means to prepare her defense. The closed-door trial was held without any prior communications to her family. Tr\u1ea7n Th\u1ecb Xu\u00e2n was sentenced to nine years in prison<\/strong> and five years of house arrest. She is currently detained in No. 5 Prison, Thanh H\u00f3a Province. She suffers from a kidney disorder, and is reportedly in poor health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VCHR calls upon Vietnam,<\/strong> as member of the UN Human Rights Council, state\nparty to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and\nsignatory of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) to uphold its binding international\ncommitments to respect human rights, including environmental and worker rights,\nand immediately release all women arbitrarily detained in Vietnam ;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VCHR calls upon all UN member states<\/strong> participating in the Fourth Cycle of Vietnam\u2019s Universal Periodic Review (UPR<\/strong>) in Geneva on 7 May 2024 :<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • to\ncall upon Vietnam to urgently abrogate \u201cnational security\u201d provisions in  the 2015 criminal Code, in particular articles\n109, 117 and 331 used to arrest and incarcerate individuals for the\nlegitimate exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association,\nassembly and freedom of religion or belief ;<\/li>
  • to\ncall by name for the release of human rights defenders, bloggers and\nenvironmental rights defenders arbitrarily detained in Vietnam.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    PARIS, 8 March 2024 (VCHR) – As the world celebrates International Women\u2019s Day on 8th March and Vietnam bids for a second term on the UN Human Rights Council, the voices of women calling for change in Vietnam are systematically and arbitrarily suppressed. The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) wishes to pay tribute today …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":48424,"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":[1685,1374,1705,1687,1704,529,251,342],"class_list":["post-48422","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-dinh-thi-thu-tuy","tag-ngo-thi-to-nhien","tag-nguyen-thuy-hanh","tag-tran-thi-tuyet-dieu","tag-tran-thi-xuan","tag-upr","tag-womens-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48422","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=48422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}