WASHINGTON, Oct 30, 2006 (AFP) – Vietnam has decided to abolish a draconian measure allowing detention without trial, ahead of US President George W. Bush’s visit to the communist state in November, a US official told AFP Monday.
“We received word that the government of Vietnam has made a political decision to repeal or abolish this administrative decree,” Michael Orona, the State Department’s deputy director of the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, said in an interview.
He was referring to the so-called “administrative detention decree 31/CP,” which Hanoi has used to hold many dissidents, and democracy and rights activists.
Washington had made the removal of the decade-old decree a top priority in its human rights dialogue with Vietnam that was resumed in February 2006.
Orona said Hanoi’s decision was conveyed to US Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron through Vietnam’s ministry of justice during Lowenkron’s visit to Hanoi a fortnight ago as part of the human rights dialogue.
Vietnam has however not made any formal announcement on the removal of the measure, which allows local officials and police to detain any person up to two years without trial in the name of protecting national security.
Asked what would be the implications of the Vietnamese decision, Orona said, “This would mean that the government cannot use this decree to detain an individual any longer and that they would have to actually provide a rule of law access and due process.”
With the decree’s removal, “whoever is detained will have to know what they are being detained for and be given an opportunity to go to court and to meet with a lawyer — rights which were not granted before,” said Orona, who accompanied Lowenkron on the Hanoi trip.
Hanoi was expected to make concessions on the human rights front ahead of Congress’s expected approval of a bill normalizing trade relations with Vietnam, granting full market access rights not subject to annual review.
The approval of the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) bill is expected to precede Bush’s visit to Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on November 18-19, during which he would hold talks with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
In addition, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is expected to approve Vietnam as its 150th member next month and Hanoi had amended a raft of laws to bring them into line with WTO rules.
Concerted pressure from the Vietnamese democracy movement, international human rights groups and western governments prodded the Vietnamese government to repeal the harsh decree, said Diem Do, the US-based chairman of Viet Tan, a pro-democracy party with members inside Vietnam.
“We must continue to draw attention to the Hanoi regime’s abuse of the legal system to carry out political repression,” he said.
Viet Tan was among the first groups to alert the US Congress about the decree when it was first issued in 1997 and had been lobbying for years to get it scrapped.
Since the resumption eight months ago of the human rights dialogue with Hanoi, three “prisoners of concern” have been released by the Vietnamese authorities, Orona said.
They included Internet dissident Nguyen Khac Toan, a freelance writer judged to have emailed details about farmers’ demonstrations to Vietnamese groups overseas and found guilty of espionage, and pro-democracy activist Pham Hong Son, a trained medical doctor, also for alleged espionage.
“There are two remaining political prisoners or prisoners of concern — Nguyen Vu Binh and Phan Van Ban — and we are continuing to press for their release,” Orona said.
Lowenkron had also pressed Hanoi to end the monitoring of Internet sites and allow for freedom of the press, he said.
“We have made benchmarks and we have seen them meet what we set out. As long as we see progress, we’ll continue the human rights dialogue,” Orona said.
