September 19, 2020
Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and members of the Danish National Assembly pledged to work with colleagues in the EU, under the framework of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), to improve human rights conditions in Vietnam during a meeting with representatives from the Brotherhood for Democracy, the Danish Missionary Council, the Human Rights Support Group for Vietnam in Denmark, and Viet Tan.
Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, President of the Brotherhood for Democracy; Mr. Filip Buff Pedersen, representative of the Danish Missionary Council; Huynh Huu Tri, representative of the Human Rights Support Group for Vietnam in Denmark; and Ms. Helena Huong Nguyen, representative of Viet Tan’s Danish chapter, had meetings and worked with representatives of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish National Assembly on September 17.
In attendance from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was Mr. Michael Suhr, Ambassador Specially on Freedom of Religion and Belief; Ms. Mette Strand Gjerloff, Head of South Asia and Southeast Asia Offices; ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Mr. Bjarke Brix Olsen, Head of Asia, Latin America and Australia Division.
On the side of the Danish Parliament, there was Representative Daniel Toft Jakobsen, both the representative of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the representative of the Political Network for Religious Freedom of the National Assembly of Denmark; and Representative Morten Messerschmidt, Church Commission representative.
During both meetings, Ms. Helena Huong Nguyen and attorney Nguyen Van Dai briefly presented about the human rights and religious freedom situation in Vietnam before and after the EU Parliament ratified the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. It emphasizes that in spite of the promises and commitments of the Vietnamese government to the world on the improvement of human rights, the human rights violations of the Vietnamese government are increasingly serious. Specifically, Vietnamese authorities violated the following four basic groups of rights:
- Freedom of Speech and Press: Vietnamese authorities arrested journalist Pham Chi Dung in November 2019. In May, two more members of the Association of Independent Journalists were arrested, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan. In addition, dozens of people using Facebook to express opposition political views have been arrested and tried in court.
- Freedom of Assembly and Association: The Vietnamese government arrested and tried eight members of the Hien Phap Group (Constitutional Group), members of the Brotherhood for Democracy, members of Viet Tan, and members of several other opposing political organizations.
- Land Rights: On the morning of January 9, 2020, the Vietnamese communist authorities dispatched 3,000 armed police forces to raid Hoanh Village in Dong Tam commune, My Duc District, Hanoi in an effort to seize land for government use. During this raid, authorities killed 84-year-old Le Dinh Kinh, seriously wounded 2 other people, and detained 29 people. In a “pocket-sized” trial full of current legal violations, 29 villagers in Dong Tam were sentenced to harsh and unfair sentences, of which 2 were sentenced to death, one was sentenced to life in prison.
- Freedom of Religion: Hanoi still causes difficulties and prevents religious activities for independent Protestant Churches in the Central Highlands, using violence to rob the Catholic Church of Thien An Monastery. Authorities bribed and pressured the Catholic Church to rotate or retire priests who dared to express different views and opinions from the Communist regime.
Representatives from the organizationos presented the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish National Assembly with a portfolio containing documents and testimonies of the persecution of the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, a member of the Interreligious Council of Vietnam, the seizure of Thien An Monastery, and the Dong Tam incident in Hanoi. This meeting also shared a number of concrete action proposals to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly of Denmark.
Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish National Assembly expressed concern, asked many questions to better understand each human rights violation, and asked the organizations to regularly update them about the human rights status in Vietnam.
The Danish officials pledged to coordinate with colleagues in the European Union to request the Vietnamese authorities to comply with commitments made under the EVFTA framework. At the same time, they will coordinate with international NGOs and support civil society organizations in Vietnam to promote the improvement of human rights conditions in Vietnam.
