UN Committee
calls on Vietnam to cease persecution of religious and ethnic minorities
Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
02/24/2012
GENEVA, 24 February 2012
(VIETNAM COMMITTEE) - The
Vietnam Committee on Human
Rights
regrets that Vietnam missed a precious opportunity to engage in a meaningful
dialogue with the United Nations in Geneva on 21-22 February 2012 during the
examination of its 10th-14th periodic reports on implementation of the UN
International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD) to which it acceded in 1982. Instead of addressing real
challenges, Vietnam confined itself to propaganda.
“Vietnam cites the quantity
of laws it has adopted as proof of the rule of law in Vietnam. It pretends to
believe that everything in the garden is rosy, simply because it says so. In
fact, many of Vietnam’s mass-produced laws are rarely or never enacted; the
stark reality for religious and ethnic minorities is the anti-human rights
policy of the regime”,
said
Vo Van Ai,
President of the Vietnam Committee for Human Rights (VCHR).
“Vietnam’s presentation of its periodic report was surreal”,
said Mr. Ai.
“The delegation began by
describing the resounding success of its policies on ethnic minorities,
supporting its claims with Soviet-style statistics - 100% of cities have primary
schools and free clinics! It then proceeded to lament the lack of access to
education and health in the remote regions where ethnic communities live. In
fact, the report was more like a bad exercise in propaganda than a genuine
effort to address problems of racial discrimination in Vietnam”.
The CERD experts saw through Vietnam’s claims, and sharply
criticized the delegation for presenting a theoretical vision of racial
discrimination, with a long list of laws but no concrete details on their
implementation. Regretting that no factual examples of discrimination were
mentioned, French expert Regis
de Gouttes observed that
“the lack of complaints against racism is not
proof that racism does not exist. On the contrary, this could stem from the
victims’ lack of knowledge of their rights, or their lack of confidence in the
Police and judiciary”. He also questioned the
system of ho khau,
or household registration permits, which is the basis of all discrimination. The
US expert Carlos Manuel Vazquez
commented that Vietnam’s claim that
“discrimination is prohibited” is no guarantee
that it does not exist on the ground.
The UN experts also criticized Vietnam’s legal system,
notably Article 87 of the Penal Code on
“undermining the unity policy; sowing divisions
between the religious and non-religious” which
the government claimed was enacted to protected minorities. Mr. Vazquez noted
that this article was “so vaguely
worded as to be used against minorities, especially those engaged in peaceful
demonstrations”, and called on Vietnam to revise
it. The Vietnamese delegation initially avoided this question, then stated that
they would “think about it”, adding that if ethnic minorities had their rights,
there were also people who “abused”
these rights. Such people were
“deceitful and harmful, and must be sanctioned by the law”.
Article 87 is one of a whole chapter of “national security” provisions in the
Vietnamese Penal Code. Since 1995, the UN has repeatedly pressed Vietnam to
revise these “catch-all” provisions which criminalize the legitimate exercise of
human rights.
Taking up reports by NGOs, notably the 30-page alternative
report of the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, the CERD experts expressed
concern about the use of negative stereotypes that stigmatize ethnic minorities
as being “backward” or “uncivilized”. Once again, the Vietnamese delegation
responded that such stereotypes were
“prohibited”. In
practice, however, these negative misperceptions are very real.
“The Vietnamese government, the
state-controlled media and the Vietnamese population in general continue to
refer to ethnic minorities by the derogatory term “moi” (“savages”), whereas the
word “Kinh”, used for the majority Vietnamese population, is a term which
implies superiority”, commented Vo Van Ai.
The CERD expressed further concern about abuses of political
and economic rights suffered by ethnic and religious minorities. French expert
Regis de Gouttes
and several other experts cited violations such as expropriation from ancestral
lands, forced population displacement, restrictions on the rights of freedom of
movement and expression, violence, arbitrary arrests and religious persecution.
Mr. de Gouttes expressed particular concern about repression against
“Khmer Krom Buddhists, affiliated to the
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, as well as Montagnards and Hmongs, who are
predominantly Christian”.
Chinese expert
Huang Yong’An,
who is also Rapporteur for the CERD examination of Vietnam, raised the serious
problem of state confiscation of lands:
“A Chinese proverb says, “oppressive government
drives the people to rebellion”. When we look at the conflicts in ethnic
minority regions, we find that many are related to issues of land-use rights.
One
NGO report said,
I quote, “peaceful demonstrations on these issues are repressed by excessive
force and violence, resulting in frequent arrests”.
Confronted by the experts’ concerns on human rights
violations, the Vietnamese delegation simply repeated that
“there is no racial discrimination in Vietnam”.
On specific allegations of Police violence used to repress demonstrations of
ethnic Hmongs in May 2011, the government denied all use of force. In fact, many
press agencies reported Vietnam’s use of armed helicopters and troops to disband
these peaceful demonstrations in Dien Bien province. Vietnam even mobilized
support from armed forces in Laos to prevent Hmongs escaping across the
Vietnam-Laos border.
Several experts urged Vietnam to develop mechanisms to enable
ethnic minorities to claim and defend their rights. Nigerian expert
Waliakoye Saidou
urged Vietnam to recognize the competence of the CERD Committee to receive
complaints from victims of abuses in Vietnam, in accordance with Article 14 of
the ICERD Convention. The Vietnamese delegation made no reply. Asked whether
Vietnam was considering the creation of a National Human Rights Commission on
the lines of the Paris Principles, the delegation replied that it was
considering the creation of such a Commission according to the
“country’s specific conditions”,
which would not necessarily conform with the Paris Principles.
“Under current circumstances in Vietnam, where
spurious laws have remained unchanged for decades, where there is no independent
civil society and especially no independent judiciary, a National Human Rights
Commission would be a parody of justice, a total farce”,
said Vo Van Ai.