Vietnam:
Repression Intensifies Prior to Party Congress
Rights Defenders, Democracy Activists Targeted
(New York,
January 22, 2010) – This week’s convictions and heavy sentences for four
Vietnamese democracy activists, including the prominent
human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, highlighted the climate of increasingly
harsh political repression in Vietnam, Human
Rights Watch said today after the release of its World Report 2010.
The 612-page World Report 2010, the organization’s 20th annual review of
human rights practices around the globe,
summarizes major human rights trends in more than 90 nations and territories
worldwide. In Vietnam, the report says, the government arrested and imprisoned
dozens of democracy activists linked to opposition parties, independent
bloggers, land rights protesters, and members of
unsanctioned religious organizations during 2009.
“With its treatment of peaceful critics, the Vietnamese government
seems determined to stand out as one of the most repressive
countries in Asia,” said Brad Adams, Asia
director at Human Rights Watch. “We’d be
thrilled if the Vietnamese government proved us wrong, but there are no signs
that it will reverse its increasingly harsh crackdown on dissent.”
In the lead-up to a key Vietnamese Communist
Party congress in 2011, Human Rights Watch is concerned that the
Vietnamese government will intensify its campaign to silence government critics
and curb social unrest in an effort to quell any potential challenges to its
one-party rule.
Away from the public spotlight, in 2009, the police cracked down on farmers
protesting land grabs in the Mekong Delta, on
Catholic parishioners in central and northern Vietnam opposing government
confiscation of church properties, and on Montagnard activists in the
Central Highlands resisting government control
of their churches.
The four activists just sentenced to prison – Le Cong Dinh, Nguyen
Tien Trung, Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, and Le Thang Long – were tried in
Ho Chi Minh City on January 20 and 21 and
received prison sentences ranging from five to 16 years. They were arrested
during May and July for alleged links with the banned
Democratic Party of Vietnam. They were accused of “colluding” with
Vietnamese activists based abroad to create anti-government websites, post
critical articles on the Internet, and incite social instability, and charged
with attempting to overthrow the government under article 79 of Vietnam's
penal code. A fifth defendant, Tran Anh Kim, was
sentenced to five and a half years in prison under article 79 on December 28.
On January 14 and 15, the Gia Lai provincial court sentenced two
Montagnard Christians to prison, for nine and 12 years respectively, allegedly
for organizing a “reactionary underground” network in violation of the country’s
unity policy.
“Rights-respecting governments should speak up to
protect peaceful activists and rights defenders in Vietnam and insist that the
government abide by its international commitments,” Adams said. “Donors have
been far too quiet about rights in recent years, but Vietnamese activists say
that they will never succeed without consistent support from influential
governments.”
Vietnamese courts sentenced at least 20 government critics and
independent church activists to prison during 2009 on vaguely worded
national security charges, according to the
World Report. These include nine dissidents from Hanoi
and Haiphong convicted in October for disseminating anti-government propaganda
under penal code article 88. Their sentences are expected to be upheld in
hearings before Vietnam’s Supreme Court this
week even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention determined last year that five of the defendants had been
detained arbitrarily.
Hundreds of other peaceful political and religious activists are
serving long prison sentences in Vietnam. Religious freedom deteriorated during
2009, Human Rights Watch said. The government targeted religious leaders and
their followers who advocated civil rights,
religious freedom, and equitable resolution of land disputes.
There were also clashes between police and thousands of Catholic
parishioners in Quang Binh protesting government confiscation of church
properties, and government-orchestrated mobs violently dispersed followers of
Thich Nhat Hanh, a renowned Buddhist monk who
has advocated more religious freedom.
In the Central Highlands, authorities continued to arrest Montagnard
Christians suspected of belonging to unregistered house churches considered
subversive by the government, or of planning land rights protests or conveying
information about rights abuses to activists abroad. On several occasions the
police beat and shocked Montagnards with
electric batons when they refused to sign pledges to join government-sanctioned
churches.
During the review of Vietnam’s rights record by the UN
Human Rights Commission in May, Vietnam defiantly rejected
recommendations by UN member states to allow groups and individuals to promote
human rights, express their opinions, and express public dissent. The government
also refused to issue invitations to visit Vietnam to UN rights experts covering
freedom of religion, expression, torture, and
violence against women.
Vietnam’s antipathy toward free expression and other fundamental rights does not
bode well for the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), which Vietnam now chairs, Human Rights Watch said.
Vietnam has signed the ASEAN Charter, a legally
binding agreement that commits member states to “strengthen democracy, enhance
good governance, and protect and promote human
rights and fundamental freedoms.”
“By locking up peaceful rights defenders, democracy activists, and
cyber-dissidents, the Vietnamese government is clearly flouting its promises to
ASEAN and the international community,” Adams said.
To read Human
Rights Watch’s World Report 2010 chapter on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/en/node/87404
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/en/asia/vietnam
For more information, please contact:
In London, Brad Adams (English): +44-20-7713-2767; or
+44-7908-728-333 (mobile)
In New York, Elaine Pearson (English):
+1-212-216-1213; or +1-646-291-7169
(mobile)