June 25, 2017
“By stripping political dissident Pham Minh Hoang’s citizenship and forcing him on to a plane to #France, Hanoi has committed a blatantly illegal, rights violating act that deserves forceful, worldwide condemnation. For Vietnam, this unprecedented and shocking action crosses many human rights red lines on freedom of expression, right to nationality, and exercise of basic civil and political freedoms. No one should ever accept the premise that Vietnam can condition its national citizenship on people expressing only political views that are in accordance with the preferences of the ruling Communist party.
Vietnam is fundamentally wrong to remove the citizenship of a person who ’propagates’ against the government, as they contend Pham Minh Hoang did. Other governments that count themselves as friends of Vietnam, and international aid donors providing support to the government, should hound Vietnam’s government representatives at every single international forum going forward until Hanoi realizes its mistake and permits Pham Minh Hoang to return to Vietnam and reunite with his family.
There is no possible justification for #Hanoi’s illegal, rights violating action that has suddenly and harshly split a man from his wife and his family. By effectively forcing Pham Minh Hoang into indefinite exile, the #Vietnam government has demonstrated its readiness to violate its citizens’ human rights however it deems necessary to preserve its political power. This is not the act of a respectable state actor in the international system but rather a one-party dictatorship now apparently contending for the dubious honor of having the worst human rights abusing record in today’s #ASEAN.”
Phil Robertson
Deputy Director, Asia Division
Human Rights Watch (#HRW)
Source: Human Rights Watch
