Vietnam

In the years 2010/2011 the Vietnamese authorities intensified their persecution of bloggers, journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, human rights defenders and religious and ethnic minorities. Hundreds of believers were intimidated and forced to abandon their faith. Furthermore, democracy and anti-corruption activists and workers rights campaigners were intimidated, arrested, tortured and imprisoned. Arrested individuals frequently were denied fair trials. Despite being seriously ill several incarcerated human rights defenders and dissidents were not been released from jail. Police and security officials sometimes acted with impunity.

To commemorate Vietnam’s National Day the authorities have granted amnesty to 10,244 prisoners in August 2011. Only a few of the released were dissidents. Several hundred human rights campaigners, bloggers, journalists, minority people and believers of officially unrecognized religious groups still are in jail or under house arrest. Some 250 members of the indigenous ethnic groups in the Highlands still are in jail or awaiting trial. At least 17 bloggers and three journalists are detained.

Denial of press and internet freedom

Severe restrictions on the right to freedom of expression still continue. The Government of Vietnam remains among the countries with the strictest Internet controls, which included blogs on Facebook and numerous Vietnamese-language websites of the democratic opposition abroad, the pro-democracy movement Viet Tan and human rights organisations. Independent experts found evidence of official involvement in hacking attacks on critical websites and blogs. In February 2011, a new executive decree came into force that provides new monetary penalties for journalists and bloggers who report on issues related to national security. The new restrictions aim to restrict the burgeoning blogging community: Many bloggers until now have published under pseudonym to avoid reprisals by state security officials. The new media regulations were issued amid a clampdown against independent journalists and bloggers before the 2011 Communist Party Congress.

The online commentator Vi Duc Hoi was sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2011 and five years of house arrest for publishing “propaganda against the state”. In April 2011 his prison term was reduced to five years in prison and three years of house arrest. He is a former high-ranking party member who in his blog posts focused on land right conflicts.

The university mathematics professor and political blogger Pham Minh Hoang was sentenced to three years of prison and another three years of house arrest on August 10, 2011, after publishing reports on corruption and environmental degradation on his blog.

Journalists who tried to report on public demonstrations were been detained and interrogated. Three Vietnamese journalists working for foreign media who covered anti-Chinese protests in Hanoi in July 2011 were forced into police buses and held in police custody for hours. At least four bloggers currently are held in prison for publishing sensitive information on Vietnam’s policy toward the People’s Republic of China.

Despite the expiration of his prison term the blogger Nguyen Van Hai on October 18, 2010, the founder of the “Free Journalists Network of Vietnam” still is in jail. He has been detained since April 2008 and was sentenced in September of that year to two and a half years in prison on trumped-up tax evasion charges. The authorities have justified his continued detention with the need of investigations on whether he had published “propaganda against the state”.

Human rights defenders under pressure

Since January 2011 more than a dozen land rights or anti-corruption campaigners, democracy activists and lawyers were imprisoned or sentenced to long prison terms. By criminalizing peaceful dissent, the Vietnamese authorities are violating their obligations as a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the constitution of the country, which both guarantee freedom of expression.

On May 30, 2011, seven land rights campaigners in the Ben Tre province were sentenced to prison terms between two and eight years because they had filed letters of complaint for villagers in the Mekong Delta losing their land to developers. They were jailed in a closed-door trial and the court area was sealed off by security people in order to prevent relatives or peasants to assist in the trial. They were denied any contact to their lawyers and families since their arrest in 2010. One of their lawyers, the prominent human rights lawyer Huynh Van Dong got expelled from his local bar association for “disrespecting the law” in August 2011. The decision was widely seen as retribution for representing high-profile human rights defenders.

The influential democracy activist Vi Duc Hoi was sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2011 for distribution of “propaganda”. His sentence was reduced in appeal in April 2011 to five years of imprisonment and three years on probation. The former head of the propaganda department of the Communist Party in a district of the Lang Son province had been advocating in essays for democracy, pluralism and human rights. Vie Duc Hoi is an ethnic Tay, a leading minority group in Vietnam.

The dissident Cu Huy Ha Vu has been jailed for seven years in prison and three years of house arrest in April 2011 for advocating an end to one-party rule in Vietnam. He is most famous for his two lawsuits against Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for abuse of power. The son of former communist revolutionary war hero and poet Cu Huy Can was sentenced in an unfair trial. One of his lawyers, who complained that no documents related to Vu’s indictment were provided by the court, was expelled by the judges.

Religious freedom denied

Religious groups that were not officially registered or approved such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, the Hoa Hao Church, the Cao Dai Church, the independent Protestant house churches, the Khmer Krom Buddhist temples and the Dega (Montagnards) Christians are monitored by a special “religious police” unit and are considered “extremists”. Many of their followers and priests have been intimidated by state officials, put under house arrest or imprisoned.

The ailing Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly was re-arrested and transferred to prison on July 25, 2011, to complete a sentence which had been suspended in March 2010 due to a brain tumor. The outspoken dissident who was a founding member of the pro-democracy movement “Bloc 8406” was sentenced in 2007 to eight years in jail followed by five years of house arrest.

Persecution of ethnic minorities

More than 10.000 ethnic Hmong have staged mass protests on April 30, 2011, in Dien Bien province, calling for land reform and religious freedom. On May 4 and 5, Vietnamese soldiers and helicopters moved in to quell the protests. There are unconfirmed reports that 28 protesters were killed and hundreds injured. International human rights organisations and journalists were unable to visit the crisis region to verify the reports.

The protests were the worst since the uprising of the indigenous Montagnard people in 2001 and 2004 in the Central Highlands, who protested against land confiscation for coffee plantations and the denial of religious freedom. The protests violently were crushed by Vietnamese troops and about 1.700 Montagnards fled to Cambodia. Recently, authorities in Vietnam have stepped up repression of the indigenous Christian minority in the Central Highlands. More than 70 Montagnards were detained in 2010 and more than 250 are known to be imprisoned on national security charges. Still today they face harsh persecution for criticizing the official land policy and for worshipping in independent house churches. Some former detainees credibly have claimed that they were tortured by security officials in jail.

In relation to the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as bilateral and EU-relationships we expect from the German government to:

• urge the government of Vietnam to invite the UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion, on the human rights of indigenous peoples, on torture and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary detention and international human rights organisations into the country,

   

   

• urge the government of Vietnam to accept an international investigation into the suppression of protests of ethnic Hmong in Dien Bien province in April / May 2011

   

   

• urge Vietnam release all prisoners of conscience who are detained for their religious belief or for their peaceful activities as human rights defenders, lawyers , bloggers or political dissidents

   

   

• urge Vietnam to guarantee the freedom of press and internet

   

   

• urge Vietnam to ensure religious freedom for all worshippers

   

   

• urge Vietnam to guarantee the respect of ethnic minorities and their land rights.