Vietnam: Rights
Abuses in the Spotlight
Back-to-back Hearings in US Congress Highlight
Worsening Rights Situation
Human Rights Watch
June 4, 2013
The
United States government should consider new ways to pressure Vietnam on human
rights issues in the wake of a worsening crackdown on dissent in the last year,
Human Rights Watch said today. In Washington, DC, the US Congress launched two
days of hearings on Vietnam before separate panels in the House of
Representatives.
Obama administration officials are testifying before the House Foreign Affairs
Committee on June 5. Human Rights Watch urged the committee to take action on
Vietnam’s deteriorating rights situation.
“The trend-lines show a worsening situation in Vietnam,” said John Sifton, Asia
Advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “In the first few months of 2013, more
people have been convicted in political trials than in the whole of last year.”
Vietnam’s authoritarian penal code prohibits public criticism of the government
and the Vietnam Communist Party. In 2012, at least 40 people are known to have
been convicted and sentenced to prison for peaceful dissent, an increase from
the number in 2011, which itself was an increase from an even lower figure in
2010. In the first five months of this year, more than 50 people were convicted
in political trials, more than matching the total for 2012.
Human Rights Watch provided new information on the recent May 16 convictions of
two activists, Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha, sentenced to 6 years and
8 years in prison for handing out pamphlets, and also noted the May 26 arrest of
blogger Truong Duy Nhat and the May 28 conviction of eight ethnic Montagnards
first arrested in June 2012, most of whom received sentences from 7 to 11 years
in prison.
Human Rights Watch also highlighted a May 5 crackdown in four cities in which
police broke up peaceful “human rights picnics” at which young bloggers and
activists were disseminating and discussing the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and other human rights documents. Police also violently broke up
anti-China protests in Hanoi on June 2, arresting over a dozen people.
In a testimony, Sifton discussed the US administration’s belief that current
dialogues on military strategic partnership and trade negotiations might serve
as an incentive for Vietnam to make changes and improve its record on human
rights. Human Rights Watch suggested that the method was not working.
“It is time for the United States government to see things for what they are,”
Sifton said. “Vietnamese authorities have not unclenched their fists.”
Human Rights Watch urged the US government to consider suspending its trade
negotiations with Vietnam unless major improvements in the rights situation
occur, and begin reviewing and possibly cutting the scope of engagement with the
Vietnamese military.
To read John Sifton’s June 4 testimony on Continuing Repression by the
Vietnamese Government to the Committee on Foreign Relations, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/node/116100
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam
For more information, please contact:
In Washington, DC, John Sifton (English): +1-646-479-2499 (mobile); or
siftonj@hrw.org
In San Francisco, Brad Adams (English): +1-510-926-8443 (mobile); or
adamsb@hrw.org