March 11th, 2009
Translated by Radio New Horizon
Freedom House, an international organization that concerns itself with freedom and democracy worldwide, recently released their reports about human rights worldwide from Geneva, where human rights of various nations were heavily examined. Nha Tran briefly recorded Freedom House’s evaluation about the status of individual freedoms globally, especially in Vietnam gathering data from insiders about the status of citizen’s rights in Vietnam nowadays.
Freedom House divided each country into three groups depending on their freedom status rankings: countries considered as completely or mostly free in the past quarter century (United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, India, etc.), countries considered as partly free (Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, China, Iraq, Iran, etc.), and countries considered to have no freedom (Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Arabia, etc.).
What do Vietnamese say?
Meanwhile Freedom House concerned, how Vietnamese people are responding to Vietnam’s current freedom status? Mr. Thi Bui, an officer at Quang Nam, remarked: “I have never come across voting rights and legitimate elections in Vietnam. People are allowed to vote, but they cannot choose who to vote for, since results are already predetermined. Thus, election results are not freely chosen by the citizens
“I have never heard about self voting. I don’t know if such a right exists here since no place has done it before. I recently heard that a person named Cu Huy Va Vu voted for himself into Parliament but his vote was rejected afterwards. No one is allowed to establish political associations freely. Everyone has to ask for permission from the Government first. Hypothetically people are free to speak, but in reality they are not. For example, your boss would make life difficult for you if your ideas are opposed to his. There is no freedom of speech. Speeches are made and directed by general officials. Vietnam, in its strategies made by the Government, conveys that the Social Republic promotes independence, freedom, and happiness however, in reality, it is less free compared to European nations. Vietnamese can only considered “free” if it promotes freedom of speech, voting, and association. Unfortunately, these rights are not eligible in Vietnam.”
In accordance to Freedom House’s research on Vietnam’s freedom status from 1973 to 1975, before Vietnam was unified, the freedom status between North and South Vietnam was significantly different. In those three years, Freedom House deemed North Vietnam to have no freedoms whatsoever, while South Vietnam was seen by the organization as partly free. After the country was unified in 1975 to the present day, Vietnam was deemed by Freedom House to absolutely have no freedoms whatsoever, except for a short stint of time in the 90s when right restrictions were slightly loosened to open Vietnamese markets to the international community.
Mrs. Thuy Huong, manager of a private company in Hanoi, said: “Vietnamese don’t have political rights. Anything relating to issues concerning politics or voting rights is severely restricted. The right to free and fair election is still significantly limited. For example, Vietnam does not allow free voting for representatives within districts. Even if we are allowed to vote, the winning individual is already predetermined. From my point of view, rights of speech and expression in media outlets are still being restricted. Freedom of religion is even more problematic. If you look in from the outside, it might seem that the government has become more open-minded. But in fact, the government is still as limiting and restricting in its rules. All Vietnamese people expect something better. Everybody wants Vietnam to adapt to the twenty-first century.”
Freedom House further reports that human rights worldwide stated that it has been three years straight that the freedom status around the world has declined. This means that all individual rights around the world have been increasingly limited since 2005. However, there are some countries whose citizen’s freedom rights have been suppressed for decades just like Vietnam. A farmer from An Giang remarks. “They set the rules, they just do as whatever they wish. They do all arrangements. People cannot vote for themselves. Decisions are made by the Battlefront of Fatherland. There is also no freedom for self voting and freedom of association as well. It’s all up to the government. It’s their decision, not ours. We still don’t have freedom of speech in Vietnam today either. It’s the Government that determines it. Association also doesn’t come individually but from their suggestion.