The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its Vietnamese member organisation, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR), made a joint stakeholder’s submission to the first Universal Periodic Review of Vietnam in May 2009.
Despite Vietnam’s accession to core human rights treaties and its adoption of extensive new legislation, serious gaps remain between international norms and Vietnamese laws and practices. Vietnam continues to adopt laws that restrict the exercise of human rights and imprisons peaceful critics under vague “national security” provisions in violation of its international obligations. Administrative detention, religious repression, crackdowns on human rights defenders, stifling of press freedom, widespread use of the death penalty, are serious concerns, as are abuses of women’s rights, including sex trafficking and coercive birth control policies – Vietnam’s abortion rate is one of the highest in the world.
The joint submission is available here.