ACAT-France, ACAT Germany, Brotherhood for Democracy, Reporters Without Borders and Viet Tan submit this report on the state of the Human Rights situation in Vietnam with our recommendations for the Office of the UN OHCHR for the 33rd session of the UPR in May 2024.
Hanoi’s reluctance to formalize a strategic relationship with Washington is well known. Observers have long noted the CPV’s fear of offending Beijing and its concerns that a closer relationship with the U.S. could foster “peaceful evolution” away from communist rule.
As you will be visiting Vietnam on September 10th to strengthen the strategic ties between the United States and Vietnam, we, the undersigned organizations, write to express our extreme concern about the human rights situation in Vietnam.
Every year, around April 30th (the date of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War), Viet Tan’s social media accounts are targeted by cyberattacks from Vietnamese state trolls. This year, the trolls launched their offensive as early as April 28th, and it lasted until May 5th.
On 28 February 2023, MEP Marianne Vind (S&D, Denmark) hosted a conference to discuss the state of play two years into the entry of the EVFTA at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. The EVFTA (EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement), signed on 30 June 2019, aims to strengthen human rights, freedom of assembly and labour rights in Vietnam, and give Vietnam frictionless trade access to Europe.
Today, the international community agrees that the People’s Republic of China is carrying out increasingly aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in the South China Sea. These hostilities began 49 years ago with the Chinese invasion of the Paracel islands (Hoàng Sa) on January 19, 1974, under Vietnamese sovereignty.
Facebook has revolutionized how we consume, create, and share information. But it has also increasingly become a tool to suppress the very freedom of expression it was meant to promote, as political actors have manipulated the platform to curtail dissent and harass opponents.
In a new report titled “#StopVNtrolls — Combatting Force 47 and Cyber Censorship”, Viet Tan exposes the harmful networks that have been responsible for coordinated social harm and supressing public discourse in Vietnam. The paper provides recommendations to Meta in order to cultivate a safe and authentic online environment.
There are more than 300 activists imprisoned in Vietnam for their political opinions. The following biographies of Vietnamese prisoners of conscience are not exhaustive, but it provides an overview about the people who dare protect human rights and challenge authoritarian rule at the risk of spending decades in prison.
The “Vietnamese street” and especially the activist community is known to be anti-China, but the Vietnamese Communist Party is keen to cultivate closer ties.
According to their candidacy statement, the Hanoi regime “believes in the universality of human rights” and “attaches great importance to the adherence to and implementation of international treaties in protecting and promoting human rights in the country.” The bad news is that the reality is quite the opposite in Vietnam.
DigitalReach, an organization dedicated to assessing the impact of technology on human rights in Southeast Asia released their 2021-2022 report. The report details the tactics
