{"id":54697,"date":"2025-07-07T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=54697"},"modified":"2025-07-04T15:39:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T15:39:00","slug":"oral-statement-by-penelope-faulkner-ccpr144","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/oral-statement-by-penelope-faulkner-ccpr144\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral Statement by Penelope Faulkner (UN Human Rights Committee, 7 July 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oral Statement by Penelope Faulkner, <\/strong>
President of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR)
United Nations\u2019 Human Rights Committee
Palais Wilson, Geneva, 7 July 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nPresident, Distinguished Experts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you\nfor giving me the opportunity to testify today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human\nrights situation in Vietnam is changing rapidly \u2013 and for the worse. I would\nlike to raise disturbing issues that happened after we filed our submission to\nyour Committee in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sweeping\ngovernment reform process led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and its General-Secretary\nMr. T\u00f4 L\u00e2m, has led to a tightening of the Party\u2019s political control, with a total lack of transparency.\nCrucial aspects of the process, which include amendments to the Constitution and\nstate laws that significantly affect people\u2019s lives, have been classified as \u201cstate secrets\u201d\nby the Politburo\u2019s \u201cConclusion 155\u201d. Judicial accountability is a serious concern. Under the\namended Constitution, only core socio-political organisations in Vietnam\nFatherland Front have the right to propose draft laws, instead of multiple\nstakeholders as before. This amendment process was rushed through the\nNational Assembly and completed in June after a record of only 43 days. The\npublic had barely one month to give its views on these important reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government Decree 121 on Lawyers, issued in June, seriously impedes\naccess to justice in Vietnam. Whereas the Ministry of Justice was previously charged\nwith granting, renewing or revoking licences to practice law, this is now in\nthe hands of the Chairpersons of provincial People\u2019s Committee\u2019s \u2013 the local Communist\nParty authorities. The Decree not only violates existing law, but may easily be\nabused by local officials to intimidate lawyers and undermine their ability to\ndefend clients, especially human rights defenders and government critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ncentralisation of powers is particularly disturbing in the light of upcoming legislative\nelections to be held in March next year. The CPV controls the whole electoral\nprocess, and elections in Vietnam are neither free, fair nor inclusive, in\nviolation of Article 25 of the ICCPR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr\nPresident, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We remain\ndeeply concerned that Vietnam has systematically failed to revise \u201cnational\nsecurity\u201d provisions in its Criminal Code, in particular Articles 109, 117 and 331, despite recommendations by your\nCommittee since 2002. These\ncatch-all provisions are in fact a legal veneer to suppress human rights. They\nmake no distinction between violent acts and the legitimate exercise of the\nright to freedom of expression, and transform peaceful human rights advocates\ninto criminals. We believe there can be no true enjoyment of civil and\npolitical rights until Vietnam brings these provisions into line with\ninternational human rights law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, transnational repression is also a serious concern, with abduction of dissidents and forced returns to Vietnam. In April, police in Sri Lanka intercepted Buddhist monk Th\u00edch Minh Tu\u1ec7 <\/a>and banned him from continuing a barefoot pilgrimage through the country. They had received a letter from the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Sangha denouncing the monk as a \u201cthreat to public order\u201d. We fear for the safety of Th\u00edch Minh Tu\u1ec7 if he returns to Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you\nfor your attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oral Statement by Penelope Faulkner, President of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR)United Nations\u2019 Human Rights Committee Palais Wilson, Geneva, 7 July 2025 Mr. President, Distinguished Experts, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today. The human rights situation in Vietnam is changing rapidly \u2013 and for the worse. I would like …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":0,"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":[65,121],"tags":[1562,1792,1816,1813,792,313,1811,1815],"class_list":["post-54697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-resources","category-vchr-reports-publications","tag-ccpr","tag-ccpr144","tag-criminal-code","tag-decree-121-2025","tag-human-rights-committee","tag-national-security","tag-thich-minh-tue","tag-to-lam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54697","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=54697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}