GENEVA, 30 March 2007 (Vietnam Committee on Human Rights) – In a move praised by Western diplomats as a step towards the rule of law, Vietnam this week announced the abolition of Decree 31\/CP on \u201cAdministrative Probation\u201d, a measure routinely invoked to detain dissidents and government critics without trial. However, in a Written Statement to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/b> stated that the communist authorities had remained silent on the existence of a lesser known but more repressive law, Ordinance 44<\/b> on \u201cRegulating Administrative Violations\u201d<\/b>, which gives local officials wider powers to not only to arrest and detain citizens suspected of \u201cnational security\u201d offences, as Decree 31\/CP, but also to commit them to mental hospitals or \u201crehabilitation camps\u201d without any due process of law.<\/p>\n
Mr. Vo Van Ai<\/b>, Chairman of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/b> and Qu\u00ea Me\u00a0: Action for Democracy in Vietnam<\/b>, told the UN that Ordinance 44<\/b> (Ref. 44\/2002\/PL-BUTVQH10), adopted by the National Assembly\u2019s Standing Committee in July 2002 and effective as of 1st October 2002, is far more prohibitive than Decree 31\/CP. Ordinance 44 empowers provincial and district-level People\u2019s Committees to detain without trial citizens \u201cwho have violated laws on security, public order and social safety, but whose offence is not serious enough to justify prosecution\u201d<\/i>. Whereas Decree 31\/CP allowed for administrative detention only, Ordinance 44 authorizes three possible forms of detention for periods of 6 months to 2 years\u00a0: detention in \u201ceducational institutions\u201d<\/b> (Article 25)\u00a0; internment in \u201cmedical facilities\u201d<\/b> (Article 26), or administrative detention<\/b> (Article 27). The first two may be authorized by district People\u2019s Committees, the latter requires the approval of the Provincial People\u2019s Committee Chairman. \u201cEducational institutions\u201d are usually rehabilitation camps or Social Protection Centres where \u201cbad social elements\u201d such as prostitutes, drug addicts, street children or dissidents may be held without charge, often in inhumane conditions. The Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Welfare work together to set up new centres where necessary. \u201cMedical facilities\u201d include mental hospitals and psychiatric institutions. In November 2006, lawyer Bui Thi Kim Thanh was committed to Bien Hoa Mental Hospital in Saigon for defending expropriated farmers and protesting state confiscation of land. She was subsequently released, but is deeply traumatized by this experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe abrogation of Decree 31\/CP is just one more ruse to delude international opinion\u201d<\/i>, said Vo Van Ai. \u201cVietnam is a master in the art of deception. Before the government abrogated Decree 31, it adopted new, more repressive legislation to suppress dissent. With Ordinance 44, Vietnam is going back to the Soviet era with its psychiatric hospitals and re-education camps\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The UN Human Rights Committee strongly denounced Decree 31\/CP in July 2002 when they examined Vietnam\u2019s periodic report on its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and called for its immediate repeal. At that very moment, Vietnam was adopting the new Ordinance 44 to continue legalization of this arbitrary practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA, 30 March 2007 (Vietnam Committee on Human Rights) – In a move praised by Western diplomats as a step towards the rule of law, Vietnam this week announced the abolition of Decree 31\/CP on \u201cAdministrative Probation\u201d, a measure routinely invoked to detain dissidents and government critics without trial. However, in a Written Statement to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"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":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-vchr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","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\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}