Nov 9, 2020 | BHR, DFF, FoRB, Open Letters
Dear Members of the European Parliament,
We, the undersigned Vietnamese and international civil society organisations, are writing to urge you to ensure that the European Parliament postpones its consent to the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and Investment Protection Agreement (IPA) until certain human rights benchmarks are met by the Vietnamese government.
As you may know, in recent years the Vietnamese government has intensified its crackdown on human rights defenders, members of civil society, religious groups and individuals who express opinions deemed critical of the government or otherwise disfavoured. The rights to free expression, opinion, association and assembly remain strictly curtailed and the judiciary is under tight state control, as are the press, civil society, and religious groups. Any expression of dissent is harshly punished by state authorities, either directly or through state-sponsored thugs. Hundreds of human rights, environmental or labour activists, lawyers, religious figures and bloggers have been convicted or otherwise detained for the peaceful exercise of their freedom of expression, in application of a draconian penal code which explicitly criminalises criticising the government.
Against this background, we regret that negotiations for the EVFTA and the IPA did not lead to more tangible human rights commitments from the Vietnamese authorities than the meagre ones included in the EVFTA’s sustainable development chapter, and that even for those there is no binding timeline nor penalties foreseen in case of failure to comply. Furthermore, we are concerned about the monitoring of the implementation of those agreements, which the EVFTA’s text assigns to independent civil society from both sides, overlooking the fact that there is hardly any independent civil society in Vietnam, and certainly none which at this stage could openly emerge and thoroughly exercise such monitoring role without fear of repercussions. Finally, we remain deeply concerned about Vietnam’s reluctance[1] to revise its penal code, whose provisions criminalising peaceful criticism of the government render de facto impossible the full enjoyment of the rights enshrined in the International Labour Organisation’s Conventions to which Vietnam is or has pledged to become a party.
If and once the agreements will be in force, threats to suspend them for human rights violations pursuant to the link with the EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement would lack any credibility: firstly, there are no EU precedents of FTAs suspended on human rights grounds; secondly, the suspension of the deal, especially of the IPA, could be extremely harmful to EU businesses and investments in the country; thirdly, Vietnam currently benefits of unilateral trade preferences through the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP)[2], and the country’s failure to uphold its numerous human rights obligations under the scheme is yet to result in any meaningful reaction by the EU, which has instead intensified negotiations for the EVFTA; fourthly, human rights violations in the country are already so widespread and severe that, were the agreements in place at the time of writing, there would arguably already be grounds to suspend them.
For all these reasons, the ongoing procedure at the European Parliament, which has to decide whether to grant, deny or postpone consent to the EVFTA and IPA, represents the last, powerful opportunity to leverage these deals to secure concrete human rights improvements in Vietnam.
Taking the same approach last used by the previous European legislature in March this year in relation to the EU-Turkmenistan Partnership and Cooperation Agreement[3], Members of the European Parliament should put the Vietnamese government on notice that they will consider giving their consent to the deals only once a series of human rights concerns have been duly addressed by the state authorities. In particular, MEPs should ask Vietnam to:
- Release all political prisoners and detainees and, pending their release, as an immediate confidence-building measure, allow access to prisoners and detainees by families, legal counsel, and outside observers from the EU as well as international humanitarian and human rights groups; among the most prominent cases are human rights, labour, religious and environmental activists, journalists and bloggers, including Le Dinh Luong, Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, Ngo Hao, Luu Van Vinh, Ho Duc Hoa, Tran Anh Kim, Nguyen Van Tuc, Nguyen Trung Ton, Nguyen Trung Truc, Truong Minh Duc, Le Thanh Tung, Nguyen Bac Truyen, Nguyen Van Duc Do, Tran Thi Nga, Tran Thi Xuan and Ho Duc Hoa;
- Publicly and unequivocally announce its commitment, with a clear timeline, to repeal or amend articles 109, 116, 117, 118 and 331 of the penal code and articles 74 and 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code, bringing the criminal legislation in conformity with the country’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);
- Put an end to the harassment, forced denunciation of faith, arrests, prosecutions, imprisonment, and ill-treatment of people because they are followers of disfavoured religions, and release anyone currently being held for peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of religion, belief, expression, assembly and association; and ensuring that all domestic legislation addressing religious affairs is brought into conformity with international human rights law;
- Allow the publication of uncensored, independent, privately-run newspapers and magazines; remove filtering, surveillance, and other restrictions on internet usage, and release all people imprisoned or detained for peaceful dissemination of their views over the internet; publicly announce a timeline to revise the Law on Cyber Security and bring it into compliance with international human rights standards;
- Immediately recognise independent labour unions; publicly announce a detailed timeline for the ratification of ILO Conventions No. 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize) and No. 105 (Abolition of Forced Labour); and immediately and unconditionally release all persons detained for peaceful activities to promote workers’ rights;
- Accepting outstanding requests for invitations by UN Special Procedures;
- Adopt a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to progressively abolish it.
Furthermore, MEPs should ask the European Commission to:
- Set up an independent monitoring and complaint mechanism to address the human rights impacts that the EVFTA and the IPA may have and that can be used by affected individuals and communities and their representatives; and
- Specify which Vietnamese independent civil society groups will compose the Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs) foreseen by the Agreements, and what measures will be in place to ensure that they can exercise their role independently, impartially, thoroughly, and safely.
Yours sincerely,
Actions by Christian for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT)
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)
Bau Bi Tuong Than Association
Boat People SOS (BPSOS)
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Defend the Defenders (DTD)
Human Rights Watch
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Legal Initiatives for Vietnam
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Swiss-Vietnam Committee (COSUNAM)
The 88 Project
Vietnam Association of Independent Journalists
Vietnamese Professional Society (VPS)
Viet Tan
Nov 9, 2020 | DFF, FoRB, Open Letters
Click here for a pdf version of this letter.
8 November 2017
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
01 Hoang Hoa Tham
Ba Dinh District
Hanoi
S.R. Vietnam
Joint Letter
RE: Civil society organisations call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Nguyễn Bắc Truyển
Dear Prime Minister,
We are writing to express our deep concern about the arrest of the human rights defender Nguyễn Bắc Truyển and his incommunicado, arbitrary, detention since the end of July 2017, and to request his immediate and unconditional release.
Mr. Nguyễn Bắc Truyển was last seen on July 30, 2017 while he was waiting for his wife near his workplace at the Redemptorist Church in Ho Chi Minh City. Later that day, the website of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced that he had been arrested along with three other human rights defenders and is alleged by the authorities to have violated Article 70 of the Vietnam Penal Code, which concerns “acting to overthrow the people’s government”, allegedly in connection with the case of human rights lawyer Nguyễn Văn Đài and his assistant Lê Thu Hà, who have been detained without trial since December 2015.
After his release in 2010 he participated in the Vietnamese Political and Religious Prisoners Friendship Association, an organization which assists impecunious prisoners and their families. As a legal expert he provided pro-bono legal assistance to families of political prisoners, victims of land grabbing and persecuted religious communities in Southern Vietnam. From 2014 until his most recent arrest he was the coordinator of the assistance program for people rendered disabled by war of the Catholic Redemptorist Bureau for Justice and Peace. Truyển was a 2011 recipient of the Hellman/Hammett award from Human Rights Watch in recognition of his human rights work.
Mr. Truyển married in 2013 and was living with his wife, Ms Bùi Thị Kim Phượng in Dong Thap Province, where the two also advocated for the rights of persecuted Hoa Hao Buddhists. On February 9, 2014 he was detained for one day and expelled from their home. Days later, after receiving threats, Ms Bùi Thị Kim Phượng also fled their home to join him in Ho Chi Minh City where they have been living since, unable to return to Dong Thap.
The circumstances of Mr. Truyển’s arrest remain unclear. Nearly three weeks after his arrest, a note from the MPS dated August 14, 2017 and delivered four days later, informed his family that he was being held at Detention Center B14 in Hanoi, 1600 km away from Ho Chi Minh City. Since his arrest he has not been allowed any visit or contact with his wife and his lawyers. Officials at Detention Center B14 have repeatedly rejected Ms Bùi Thị Kim Phượng’s requests to visit him. The MPS Security Investigation Bureau also denied his lawyer’s request to visit him on August 30, 2017. In the absence of any procedural safeguards, we consider the arrest and detention of Mr. Truyển on July 30, 2017 to have been arbitrary in contravention of Vietnam’s international legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and according to the criteria adopted by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Since Mr. Truyển’s arrest, we received regular reports that MPS officials have continuously harrassed his friends and relatives. The police have summonsed several Hoa Hao Buddhists for interrogation about their relationship with Mr. Truyển. Officials allegedly advised Mr. Truyen’s friends not to offer any support to Bùi Thị Kim Phượng’s or to assist her efforts to travel to Hanoi to provide him with food and medicine. While she has been able to deliver food to Detention Center B14, the prison administration has refused to provide her with any signed document from Mr. Truyển, attesting that he has received the delivery. At the time of writing, officials have not even been allowed Mr. Truyen to call his wife by phone.
Vietnam is a state party to the ICCPR and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and is obligated to uphold the rights of all persons deprived of their liberty, including the right to be brought promptly before a judge and to access legal counsel, as well as to be treated with humanity and dignity and not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment). These rights are being violated by the continuing incommunicado detention of Mr. Truyển. In addition, any detained person has the right to take proceedings to a judicial authority to challenge the lawfulness of his or her detention through habeas corpus or similar proceedings.
The prolonged incommunicado detention of Nguyễn Bắc Truyển, which has now lasted almost three months, constitutes a violation of the prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment under ICCPR’s Article 7 and CAT, as well as the ICCPR’s Article 10 which guarantees persons deprived of their liberty the right to be treated with humanity and dignity. While Vietnamese Criminal Procedure Code Article 58 provides for the suspension of the participation of legal counsel in cases involving charges of infringing national security until the conclusion of the investigation, this provision itself violates the right of access to legal counsel under international human rights law and cannot be used to justify acts that constitute torture or other ill-treatment, the prohibition of which is absolute.
In addition we are concerned that in addition to the violations outlined above, Mr. Truyển’s detention under Penal Code Article 79, is itself a violation of a number of rights guaranteed under the ICCPR, including under Article 9, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
We are similarly concerned that the arrest may have been undertaken in response to his exercise of international protection rights as a human rights defender, including those guaranteed under ICCPR Article 18, which provides for the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and Article 19, which provides for freedom of expression. We recall that under the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Declaration on Human Rights Defenders) Viet Nam has a responsibility to protect and facilitate the work of human rights defenders, not curtail it.
Mr. Truyển is a human rights defender who has peacefully exercised his right to freedom of expression to advocate for the rights of others, and has been detained solely for his beliefs and the peaceful exercise of rights protected under international human rights standards. We call on the government of Vietnam to immediately and unconditionally release Nguyễn Bắc Truyển and all other persons who are arbitrarily detained, and to cease harassment of his family, colleagues and fellow activists.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Amnesty International
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-Asia)
Boat People SOS
Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Civil Rights Defenders
Front Line Defenders
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Without Frontiers International
International Commission of Jurists
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Stefanus Alliance International
VETO! Human Rights Defenders’ Network
Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Click here for a pdf version of this letter.
Nov 9, 2020 | DFF, FoRB, Statements
As world leaders arrive in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum 11-12 November, a coalition of human rights organisations today launches the NOW! Campaign calling on the Vietnamese government to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience, including human rights defenders (HRDs) jailed for their activism. The Campaign is a joint initiative by the 14 below-named human rights organisations which focus their work on Vietnam specifically or campaign for the protection of human rights worldwide.
As of November 2017, there are 165 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam; men and women who have been arrested for their political, religious or conscientiously held beliefs, ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, economic status, birth, sexual orientation or other status, who have not used violence or advocated violence or hatred. The NOW! Campaign seeks to call attention to this phenomenon and to advocate for the release of all prisoners of conscience and an end to arrests of men and women for the peaceful exercise of their internationally protected rights.
The NOW! Campaign database outlining the cases of the 165 prisoners of conscience currently in Vietnam is available at www.vietnampocs.com which will be updated when prisoners of conscience are released and others are arrested. The NOW! Campaign seeks to engage the Vietnamese government in dialogue for the release of all prisoners of conscience and to lobby other governments to use their influence with their Vietnamese counterparts to call for releases and an end to arrests. The NOW! Campaign also seeks to provide moral and material support to prisoners of conscience and their families. The NOW! Campaign website provides information on how individuals and organisations can support this initiative, including through donations to prisoners of conscience and their families.
Summary of findings
For the purposes of the NOW! Campaign, an individual is deemed a prisoner of conscience where he/she is arrested for peacefully exercising his/her internationally protected human rights. Whereas Vietnam has undertaken to respect and protect a wide range of human rights through its ratification of international treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 165 men and women have been targeted by the criminal justice system for peacefully exercising these rights and are currently in detention or imprisoned. Those identified as prisoners of conscience by the NOW! Campaign include HRDs, such as bloggers, lawyers, trade unionists, land rights activists, and political dissidents, as well as the followers of non-registered minority religions, including those who have advocated for freedom of religion or belief or who have simply professed or practised their faith.
The government’s near total control of media in Vietnam and the secrecy that surrounds the arrests and jailing of certain prisoners of conscience, especially those from ethnic minority groups, mean that it is often difficult to find information about cases of prisoners of conscience and it is impossible to state definitively that all prisoners on conscience in the country have been identified. As such, the figure of 165 prisoners of conscience is not exhaustive and it is likely that there are others behind bars in Vietnam who are not accounted for in the NOW! Campaign database. Further, barriers to information in Vietnam mean that in 30 cases it has been possible for the NOW! Campaign to confirm only the identity of the individual in question; their gender and ethnicity; and the fact that he/she has been arrested and detained/imprisoned for peacefully exercising his/her rights. Of the remaining 135 cases, a greater level of information is publicly available permitting a detailed analysis of the profiles of those targeted, the articles they are charged under and the punishments they have been subjected to.
Of these cases, all are in pre-trial detention or prison, with the exception of Venerable Thich Quang Do, the patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam who is under “temple arrest”. 32 are detained pending trial; including 17 who were arrested this year. Twelve others who were arrested and convicted in 2017, together with two others – Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, a blogger better known by the nom de plume Me Nam (“Mother Mushroom”) and Tran Minh Loi, both of whom were arrested last year and convicted this year – have between them received prison sentences cumulatively totalling 65 years followed by a total of 13 years under house arrest.
In the 103 cases in the database for which we have information on sentencing, 101 are serving time-bound sentences. Together, these men and women are serving 955 years and one month in prison, followed by 204 years under house arrest. When the time already spent behind bars by the 32 men and women who are in pre-trial detention – a cumulative total of 19 and a half years – and by Venerable Thich Do, who is under seemingly indefinite arbitrary detention, and Phan Van Thu, the founder of a minority Buddhist sect, An Dan Dai Dao, who is serving a life sentence, is added, the 135 prisoners of conscience for whom there is clear information on dates or arrest and sentencing account for 999 years and seven months behind bars. In other words, these peaceful HRDs and religious followers, between them, account for just short of a millennium behind bars.
Support the NOW! Campaign
In recent years, the United States and other foreign governments have negotiated the release of certain high profile prisoners of conscience. While releases are welcome, these men and women regained their liberty in exchange for agreeing to go into exile in the US or elsewhere. These conditioned releases treat the symptoms rather than the cause of a deep-seated problem which can only be resolved with the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam and an end to arrests of people for the exercise of their internationally protected rights. To learn more about prisoners of conscience in Vietnam and to find out how you join the call for their immediate and unconditional release, visit the NOW! Campaign website www.vietnampocs.com
Supported by
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Boat People SOS
Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Civil Rights Defenders Defend the Defenders
Democratic Voice of Vietnam Front Line Defenders
Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam Montagnard Human Rights Organization
Stephanus Alliance The 88 Project
Vietnamese Women for Human Rights The World Organisation Against Torture
Nov 9, 2020 | DFF, FoRB, Open Letters
30 June 2017
Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Ba Dinh District
Hanoi
S.R. Vietnam
Re: Open Letter: calling on the government of Vietnam to immediately and unconditionally release Thích Quảng Độ, Nguyễn Văn Đài and Đỗ Thị Hồng
Dear Prime Minister,
As you prepare to join other world leaders at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, we, the undersigned civil society organisations, write to express our deep concern about the continued detention and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam. We highlight the cases of three prominent human rights defenders from three different religious communities: the Most Venerable Thích Quảng Độ, Mr. Nguyễn Văn Đài and Ms. Đỗ Thị Hồng have been arbitrarily detained, without the due process protections afforded to them under international law. We consider them to have been deprived of liberty solely for exercising their human rights peacefully, and therefore request their immediate and unconditional release, and the release of all other prisoners of conscience detained in Vietnam.
Thích Quảng Độ, an 89 year-old Buddhist monk and leader of the independent Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), is Vietnam’s longest-detained human rights defender, having been deprived of liberty in various forms for over 30 years. He is currently under house arrest without charge. He is confined to his room and is being held under extreme restrictions in the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City. He has no key to the iron gate that blocks the staircase to his upper-floor room, his communications are closely monitored and he is under constant police surveillance. He is not even allowed to preach in the monastery. Thích Quảng Độ nevertheless continues to speak out for human rights and in particular religious freedom, but these long years of isolation and lack of adequate medical care have taken a heavy toll on his health.
In May 2017, Thích Quảng Độ expressed his wish to move to the UBCV’s Long Quang Pagoda in Hue so he can live beside his followers and receive the care and treatment that he badly needs. On 14 May 2017, he asked the UBCV’s secretary-general Lê Công Cầu to accompany him there. However, police intercepted the call and immediately placed Lê Công Cầu under house arrest. They told Cầu that Thích Quảng Độ was “not welcome” in Hue, and forbade him to assist the UBCV leader in any way. Lê Công Cầu held a hunger strike to protest this arbitrary police action. We urge you to ensure that Thích Quảng Độ be allowed to travel to Hue and reside there, without interference by the authorities.
Police arrested 49-year-old human rights lawyer Nguyễn Văn Đài in Hanoi on 16 December 2015, on the charge of “conducting propaganda against the Socialist State of Vietnam.” Since then he has been held incommunicado, without access to lawyers of his choosing. His commitment to human rights started in 2000 when he took on the defense of a Christian who was detained after she opposed the authorities’ attempts to dissolve her worship service. Lawyer Dai offered pro bono legal advice to religious communities, fellow human rights defenders, political groups, and independent labour unions until police arrested him in 2007. In that same year, authorities sentenced him to four years in prison. After his release in 2011, he was placed under house arrest until March 2015. Despite these restrictions, he has continued his advocacy for human rights. On 5 April 2017, the German Association of Judges awarded him its Human Rights Prize for 2017. Dai’s wife was stopped by authorities at the airport and prevented from travelling to Germany to receive the prize on his behalf. The authorities should drop all charges against Nguyễn Văn Đài, and release him immediately.
Ms. Đỗ Thị Hồng, 60 years old, is one of the leaders of the Buddhist sect Ân Đàn Đại Đạo that was founded in what was then South Vietnam in 1969 and outlawed after Communist forces took power in 1975. Police arrested Ms. Hồng in 2012 on the charge of “plotting to overthrow the government” and subsequently sentenced her to 13 years in prison, to be followed by 5 years of house arrest. She suffers from poor health in prison. In a closed trial in 2013, the sect’s founder Phan Van Thu was given a life sentence and 21 other leaders were sentenced to a collective total of 299 years in prison and 105 years of house arrest. The authorities provided as “incriminating” evidence excerpts from a sermon by the founder which referenced human rights, protection of the environment, and international law. The government also confiscated an ecological tourism park of 48 hectares with temples and assets which the community had built. The Vietnamese government should immediately and unconditionally release Đỗ Thị Hồng, and other imprisoned members of the Ân Đàn Đại Đạo sect, return confiscated property, and end harassment of the group.
Concerns about these three human rights defenders have been repeatedly raised by international organisations, governments, and bodies. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein raised the case of Nguyễn Văn Đài in a statement of concern about the Vietnamese government’s crackdown on human rights defenders in 2016. In addition, 73 parliamentarians from 14 countries issued a call for his release. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Chairperson Charles Santiago, a member of the Malaysian parliament, who also signed the letter, said that the continued detention of Nguyễn Văn Đài and his assistant Lê Thu Hà “constitutes a black mark on Vietnam’s human rights record and its international credibility.”
Ninety international personalities, including Nobel Peace Prize laureates, religious leaders and parliamentarians called for the release of Thích Quảng Độ in a joint letter on 12 November 2015. More recently, the European Union (EU) called for the release of Thích Quảng Độ and Nguyễn Văn Đài during the 6th EU-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue in December 2016, emphasizing that “all persons detained for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression should be released”.
Moreover, we are also extremely concerned that these persons have been deprived of liberty under vaguely-worded “national security” clauses in Vietnam’s Penal Code that are clearly inconsistent with international human rights treaties ratified by Vietnam. This includes Articles 79, 88 and 258 of the Penal Code. These articles contradict provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Vietnam is a state party, including Article 9 (1), which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of liberty; Article 18, which provides for the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and Article 19, which provides for freedom of expression, respectively. While under the ICCPR the latter rights may be restricted, such restrictions are narrowly defined. The overbroad and vague “national security” clauses in Vietnam’s Penal Code, and the arbitrary way by which they are applied, clearly do not meet the requirements for restrictions under these Articles.
Despite recommendations by the international community, including at the Universal Periodic Review session on Vietnam in 2014, the government has not only failed to review these restrictive “national security” clauses, but has incorporated similar language into the newly-adopted Law on Belief and Religion that will come into force in January 2018.
Lawyers, activists, and religious or community leaders play a vital role in protecting and promoting human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. State-sponsored human rights abuses limit peaceful exercise of civil and political rights, restrict the space for civil society groups to operate, and leave religious and other minorities vulnerable to violations.
We call on the government of Vietnam to immediately and unconditionally release Thích Quảng Độ, Nguyễn Văn Đài, and Đỗ Thị Hồng and all other prisoners of conscience. Furthermore, we strongly urge the authorities in Vietnam revoke articles of the Penal Code under which the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of religious leaders and human rights defenders have been authorized, and amend the Law on Belief and Religion and other relevant legislation to bring them into line with international human rights law.
We look forward to receiving your reply on these important matters. Please reply to Penelope Faulkner at Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, who can be reached at pfaulkner.vchr@gmail.com and fax number (+33.1.) 45 98 32 61.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Amnesty International
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Front Line Defenders
Human Rights Watch
FIDH
Quê Me: Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
VETO! Human Rights Defenders’ Network – Germany
Additional signatories:
Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l’Homme (AEDH)
ALTSEAN, Burma
Amnesty International USA, Group 524, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
Amnesty International USA, Group 56, Lexington, Massachusetts
Armanshahr/OPEN ASIA, Afghanistan
Asma Jahangir, former UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance
Boat People SOS
Buddhist Youth Movement of Vietnam (GĐPTVN)
Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC)
Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO)
Center for Prisoners’ Rights, Japan
Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4CENTER), Malaysia
ChinaAid
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, India
Freedom House, USA
Gerard Noodt Foundation for Freedom of Religion or Belief
Giulio Terzi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Italy
Global Committee for the Rule of Law – “Marco Pannella”
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
Human Rights in China (HRIC)
Human Rights Without Frontiers International
Hudson Institute, Center for Religious Freedom
Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw), Thailand
Jubilee Campaign, USA
League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI)
Mouvement Lao pour les Droits de l’Homme
Odhikar, Bangladesh
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Norway
Stefanus Alliance International
Taiwan Association for Human Rights
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, Viện Hóa Đạo
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam Overseas in the USA
World Movement for Democracy
Nov 9, 2020 | FoRB, Statements
JAKARTA, 6 October 2016 — Legislators from across Southeast Asia today added their voice to calls for the Vietnamese Parliament to reject a draft of a proposed Law on Belief and Religion until it is brought into line with international human rights standards.
“Across Southeast Asia we are seeing the passing of repressive laws that seek to place into law restrictions on our citizens’ human rights and freedoms,” said Charles Santiago, a member of the Malaysian Parliament and Chairperson of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).
“The importance for laws that promote tolerance and uphold the rights to religious freedom, and, inversely, the need for legislation that tackles the dangers of hate speech and discrimination, cannot be understated at this time in our region. With certain constituents and groups seeking to stoke and manipulate ethnic, social and religious divides, our focus has never been more needed on ensuring we, as legislators, use our positions to promote tolerance and religious freedom.”
In an open letter to National Assembly President Nguyen Kim Ngân, APHR and civil society groups from across the region gave recognition to improvements to the proposed Law on Belief and Religion in Vietnam from an earlier seen draft, but expressed their concerns that it continued to place unacceptable restrictions on the right to freedom of religion or belief and other human rights.
The draft law, which has been revised several times and drawn strong criticism from many religious communities, is expected to be voted into law by the National Assembly at its session in October-November 2016.
“Basic guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief continue to be undermined by onerous registration requirements and excessive state interference in religious organizations’ internal affairs,” the letter reads.
“Indeed, this and the previous versions of the law inherit from previous rules and regulations this emphasis on government control and management of religious life which is contrary to the spirit and principle of the right to freedom of religion and belief.”
Key requests to the Vietnamese Parliament include: 1) that the definition of a religion should be made consistent with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); 2) registration with the government should not be made a pre-requisite for the exercise of freedom of religion and belief; 3) the law must not allow officials to arbitrarily interfere in the internal affairs of religious organizations; 4) ambiguous and potentially discriminatory language should be removed; and 5) Provisions should be made to establish legal channels and mechanisms for people to file complaints, and have those complaints independently investigated and acted on, in cases of alleged violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief.
The letter does however, note welcome improvements to the draft law, including provisions for the right to change one’s religion, as well as to follow or not follow a religion, the right of some detainees “to use religious books and manifest their belief or religion”, and the right of religious organizations to participate in activities such as education, vocational training, medical care and social and humanitarian assistance.
“For these reasons, we strongly urge that the law be revised, in consultation with religious community representatives, including those of non-recognized religious communities, and experts in international human rights law, to ensure that the law protects the right to freedom of religion or belief in line with article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” the letter reads.
The full letter can be downloaded here: Open Letter to the President of the Vietnam National Assembly
