Critics Roll Their Eyes as Vietnam Applies to Join UN Human Rights Council
RFA | 2021-02-23
Vietnam on Monday announced its candidacy to join the U.N. Human Rights Council,
but claims by the country’s foreign minister that the one-party communist state
fully protects “human rights and fundamental freedoms” drew swift scorn and
disbelief from rights experts.
Rights and freedoms can be protected and promoted only when a country defends
itself against epidemic disease, foreign minister Pham Binh Minh told a
high-level meeting of the Geneva-based Rights Council’s 46th Regular
Session.
“[This] is the best way to ensure that each and every member of the society can
fully enjoy their human rights,” Pham said, quoted by Vietnamese state media.
“We continue to put emphasis on the protection and promotion of all human rights
and fundamental freedoms of our people, even in this most difficult of times.”
Membership in the UN Human Rights Council is being sought by Vietnam for the
2023-2025 term, Pham said, adding that Vietnam has been “endorsed as the ASEAN
candidate for this post” in competition with candidates from other countries in
the U.N.’s Asia-Pacific representational grouping.
Nguyen Van Dai--a Vietnamese lawyer and democracy advocate now living in
Germany—voiced surprise and concern at Pham’s announcement, calling Vietnam
Southeast Asia’s most oppressive state.
“Surely, Vietnam can’t run for [membership on] the Human Rights Council,” Nguyen
told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “For the last four years, Vietnam has become
Southeast Asia’s most oppressive country, even replacing Burma as the country
holding the most political prisoners.”
“In addition, Vietnam’s trade partners like the European Union, the Federal
Republic of Germany, the United States, and Australia have frequently called on
it to release the activists now being held in Vietnam’s prisons, and to improve
its record on human rights,” he said.
Significant violations
In an annual report examining the rights records of countries around the world,
the U.S. State Department this year said that Vietnam had been responsible in
2019 for “significant” violations of human rights, including “unlawful or
arbitrary killings by the government; forced disappearance; torture by
government agents; [and] arbitrary arrests and detentions.”
Restrictions on freedom of expression on the internet and in the press were also
seen, along with “substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly
and freedom of association,” the State Department said.
Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a
spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook
personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the
ruling Communist Party Congress in January.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World
Press Freedom Index. Around 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in
Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group
said.
Other countries widely condemned for rights abuses at home, and currently
serving as member states on the Council, include China, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia,
and Eritrea.
The United States, which left the Rights Council in June 2018 after objecting to
what then-President Trump called the group’s unfair and disproportionate
targeting of Israel in Council resolutions, has meanwhile now expressed its
intention to return—first as an observer in the next two-year term and
eventually as a full member.
Government defense rejected
Vietnamese rights activist Pham Le Vuong Cac meanwhile rejected a government
defense submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on Feb. 4 of
actions taken by authorities following a deadly land clash a year earlier at the
Dong Tam commune outside Hanoi, in which village elder Le Dinh Khinh was shot
dead by police.
Kinh, 84, was killed during the early-morning Jan. 9, 2020 raid on the village
by 3,000 security officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military
construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, Hanoi.
Le’s sons, Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong, were later sentenced to death for
murder in connection with the deaths of three police officers who were killed in
the clash when they were attacked with petrol bombs and fell into a concrete
shaft while running between two houses.
They were among a group of 29 villagers tried for their roles in the incident.
Other punishments handed out by the court included a life sentence and other
sentences ranging from six years to 15-months’ probation.
Writing on Feb. 4 in response to concerns expressed by the Special Procedures
Branch of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Vietnam’s permanent
mission to U.N. offices in Geneva said the trials had been handled as “a normal
criminal case,” with the rights of defendants ensured and all procedures carried
out according to Vietnamese law.
Authorities’ mass arrest of Dong Tam villagers, including Kinh’s wife Can Thi
Theu, and of independent journalist Pham Doan Trang, who had posted articles
about the deadly raid, had “completely violated international standards of human
rights,” though, Pham Le Vuong Cac said.
“It’s nothing new for Vietnam to argue against concerns criticizing its
detention of activists. It has been the government’s policy for a long time not
to be silent, but to speak up to assert its own view of things,” he said.
“When a country becomes a member of the U.N., it should comply with the
provisions of international law," Pham said.
While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations
have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small
landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too
little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English
by Richard Finney.
[Home] [About us] [Bills of Rights] [Documents] [H R Reports] [VNHR Awards] [HR Forum] [Links]
|