{"id":57598,"date":"2026-10-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queme.org\/?p=57598"},"modified":"2026-10-19T07:34:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:34:56","slug":"eu-should-raise-serious-human-rights-concerns-with-to-lam-during-visit-in-brussels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/eu-should-raise-serious-human-rights-concerns-with-to-lam-during-visit-in-brussels\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU should raise serious human rights concerns with Vietnamese Premier T\u00f4 L\u00e2m during visit to Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PARIS, 19 October 2026 (VCHR) – Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR)<\/strong> joined with 12 international human rights organisations in urging the European Union to raise serious human rights concerns with Vietnamese President and Secretary-general of the Communist Party T\u00f4 L\u00e2m during his visit to Brussels on 22 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an Open Letter to Ant\u00f3nio Costa, President of the Council of Europe and, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, the organisations documented Vietnam\u2019s widespread abuses of fundamental freedoms and human rights, including worker rights, freedom of religion or belief, Internet freedom, freedom of expression and the press. The organisations also denounced the intensification of transnational repression and the arbitrary detention of over 160 political prisoners, including pro-democracy campaigners, human rights defenders, independent journalists, climate change activists, labour and land rights defenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVietnam\u2019s unabated repression not only violates its\u2019 citizens\u2019 rights, but also breaches its binding commitments to the EU under the EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the 2020 EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA)\u201d <\/em><\/strong>said VCHR President Penelope Faulkner. \u201cThe EU should insist that all agreements with Vietnam be followed by concrete human rights progress on the ground\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the letter:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ant\u00f3nio Costa
President of the European Council
European Council
Rue de la Loi 175, 1048 Brussels, Belgium<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission
European Commission
Rue de la Loi 200, 1040 Brussels, Belgium<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brussels, 16 October 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RE: Addressing Human Rights Absuses During Vietnam\u2019s To Lam\u2019s Visit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear President Costa and President von der Leyen,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are writing to urge you to raise grave concerns over the Vietnamese government\u2019s intensifying repression during the upcoming visit to Brussels of To Lam, Vietnam\u2019s President and Communist Party General Secretary. Specifically, we urge you to emphasize how ongoing human rights violations, including labor rights abuses, breach not only Vietnam\u2019s international obligations, but also those undertaken in bilateral deals with the EU, and to lay out consequences for persistent non-compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article 1 of the EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement<\/a> (PCA) identifies respect for human rights as an \u201cessential element<\/a>\u201d of the agreement, and the 2020 EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) includes a series of binding and enforceable human rights, labor rights and environmental obligations<\/a>. In 2019, before the European Parliament\u2019s vote on consent to the EVFTA, Vietnam pledged to ratify International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise by 2023, but has yet to do so. Vietnam also claimed to have undertaken several key reforms to its labor laws, most notably, amending its Labor Law and Trade Union Law ostensibly to allow the existence of independent worker representative organizations\u2014nascent factory-unions. But the government then took no further actions to implement these reforms or issue regulations to allow these entities to form. No independent worker organizations have since formed, and seven years after the finalization of the EVFTA, no independent trade unions exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU has taken no action in response to Vietnam\u2019s repeated breaches of its EVFTA-related obligations and pledges; instead, in January it upgraded<\/a> bilateral relations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vietnamese government has sharply intensified its repression of basic freedoms over the past 10 years. This is a period during which To Lam served first as Minister<\/a> of Public Security (2016-2024), and since then both as President and General Secretary of the Communist Party, in an unprecedented consolidation of power that further reduced the government\u2019s limited checks and balances. On To Lam\u2019s watch, the Vietnamese police launched a far-reaching crackdown that decimated the country\u2019s civil society, stepped up transnational repression<\/a>, and expand the scope and use of draconian laws<\/a> that criminalize the exercise of freedom of expression in contravention of Vietnam’s international human rights obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are now more than 160 political prisoners<\/a> in Vietnam, jailed in squalid conditions for exercising their right to freedom of expression or for peaceful human rights, democracy and\/or climate activism. Sentences follow grossly unfair trials, often marred by public \u201cconfessions\u201d extorted through torture or other ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch has documented<\/a> how the Vietnamese authorities are increasingly using a vague, overbroad, and abusive provision of the Penal Code (article 331) on prohibiting the \u201cabuse of democratic freedoms,\u201d both to silence prominent activists and to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services, corruption, or police abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2016 Press Law commands that the press must serve as the voice of the Communist Party, its organizations and state agencies. Vaguely defined laws prohibiting acts such as \u201cdisseminating anti-state propaganda\u201d or the \u201cabuse\u201d of democratic freedoms are used to arbitrarily detain independent journalists, bloggers, online commentators, and human rights defenders, who are regularly held incommunicado during pre-trial stages over prolonged periods of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vietnam\u2019s Cybersecurity Law <\/a>(2018), Decree 147\/2024<\/a>, and Personal Data Protection Law<\/a> require foreign platforms to localise data, and fulfil takedown and disclosure demands within 24\u201348 hours or risk fines and bandwidth throttling. Compliance rates are alarming, nearing 100% for Meta<\/a>, YouTube<\/a> and TikTok<\/a> indicating systematic platform co-operation with censorship and surveillance, which creates serious human rights compliance risk for the tech sector, including EU companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We urge you to publicly and privately voice concerns about Vietnam\u2019s worsening record during To Lam\u2019s visit and press the Vietnamese government to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n