Our organizations have repeatedly denounced before this Commission the vague, broadly-defined and “catch-all” provisions of the SRV’s penal law, and the “legalization” of arbitrary practices to which this has led. We regret to say that Vietnam not only continues to implement such provisions, but it strengthens them with total impunity.
Last year, despite the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee1, the government routinely invoked “national security” legislation and the “abuse of democratic freedoms to threaten the interests of the State” in order to conceal a deliberate policy of suppression of all free expression. This policy is particularly directed against the right to impart information and ideas overseas, a right enshrined in the SRV Constitution (Article 68) and guaranteed in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19).
A number of dissidents have been convicted or placed in custody on fallacious charges of “espionage” under Article pretext 80 of the SRV Criminal Code, a crime punishable by 12 years in prison, a life sentence or the death penalty :
– Nguyen Vu Binh, former columnist in the official journal Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review) was arrested on 25th September 2002 for sending a testimony on the human rights situation in Vietnam to the U.S. Congress on 20th July 2002 and for criticizing the Sin-Vietnamese Border Treaties. On 31st December 2003, at a trial which lasted less than 3 hours, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison and 3 years house arrest for “spying”. On 29th November 2003, his wife had sent a fifth letter to the authorities (none have been answered) protesting that neither she nor her three lawyers had been able to see her husband since his arrest because the Attorney had systematically refused ;
– Nguyen Khac Toan, former officer in the North Vietnamese army, was condemned to 12 years in prison on 20th December 2002 for helping peasants to file complaints to the authorities and sending copies of these complaints overseas via the Internet. He is currently detained in B 14 Prison near Hanoi ;
– Pham Hong Son, arrested on 27th March 2002 for translating and circulating via the Internet an article entitled "What is Democracy" downloaded from the website of the US Embassy in Hanoi, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on 18th June 2003. His sentence was reduced to 5 years as a result of international pressure ;
– Nguyen Vu Viet, Nguyen Truc Cuong, and Nguyen Thi Hoa, were sentenced respectively to 5, 4 and 3 years in prison on September 10th 2003 at a brief, closed trial for “abusing democratic freedoms to harm the interests of the State”. In fact, they had simply sent abroad information on their uncle, Father Nguyen Van Ly, who is currently serving a prison sentence. Their sentences were also reduced as a result of international pressure, and they were released on the 28th November 2003.
The FIDH and the Vietnam Committee welcome the reduction of these sentences on appeal. Nevertheless, under international law and in view of the facts laid against them, the organizations believe that those persons should never have been arrested or convicted at all. Their sentences, albeit reduced, are arbitrary, violate the ICCPR, simply aim at satisfying the international community and exempt the State from its accountability for violating its citizens’ freedom of expression and right to a fair trial.
The international community should not be satisfied with such gestures. Many prisoners of opinion are languishing in prison, awaiting a trial which they know in advance will be unfair :
– Colonel Pham Que Duong and researcher Tran Khue were arrested in late December 2002 and are awaiting trial in prison on charges of espionage ;
– Nguyen Dan Que was arrested in front of his house in Ho Chi Minh City on 17th March 2003 on suspicion that he was going to a cybercafe to send information overseas criticising the regime. He is believed to be charged with espionage, and he is still awaiting trial ;
– Pham Van Tuong (religious name Thich Tri Luc), a Buddhist who fled Vietnam to escape religious persecution and obtained refugee status at the UN High Commission for Refugees in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) on June 28th 2002 before “disappearing” on 25th July 2002, has been forcibly repatriated and detained in secret for a year. The Vietnamese authorities, who had previously denied all knowledge of his whereabouts, announced his forthcoming trial only a few days before its scheduled date on August 1st 2003. The trial was posponed sine die and the government cynically claimed that Thich Tri Luc had been arrested as he attempted to flee from Vietnam on 26th July 2002. A long-standing defender of human rights and religious freedom, Thich Tri Luc is accused of “fleeing abroad with the intent to oppose the people’s government”.
The Vietnamese authorities blatantly violate freedom of religion, invoking Article 4 of the SRV Constitution on the political monopoly of the Communist Party as a “legal” basis for their actions. The UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom has already noted the restrictive nature of Article 4, stating that it “is liable to impede religious freedom, indeed to reduce it to almost nothing at all”2. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV - the traditional, independent Buddhist Church, banned by the government in 1981) is the main victim of that policy.
Indeed, after making promises of increased opening towards the UBCV in an unprecedented meeting between the UBCV Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang and SRV Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on April 2nd 2003, the Vietnamese government seized the pretext of a special assembly held by the UBCV on 1st October 2003 to launch a vast and brutal campaign of repression against the outlawed UBCV on 8th October 2003.
Eleven senior digninaries, all members of the UBCV’s newly appointed leadership, were placed under “administrative detention”, either formally or unoficially. They include the UBCV Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, 86, and his Deputy Thich Quang Do, 75, who are now detained under total isolation, respectively at the Nguyen Thieu Monastery in Binh Dinh province and the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City in their Monasteries. They are denied all contacts with the outside, and have no access to medical treatment. Thich Quang Do is very ill, and cannot eat solid foods. Four monks have been formally placed under detention for 24 months under decree 31/CP, which authorizes detention without trial for citizens suspected of “threatening national security”, i.e. Thich Tue Sy (Administrative Detention Decision No 4313/QD-UB), Thich Thanh Huyen (Decision No 4314/QD-UB), Thich Nguyen Ly Decision No 4311/QD-UB) and Thich Dong Tho. Other monks have been placed under administrative detention by “verbal” orders, i.e. Thich Thien Hanh, Thich Thai Hoa, Thich Nguyen Vuong and Thich Phuoc An.
At the same time, the authorities placed UBCV pagodas all over Southern and Central Vietnam under surveillance, cut off telephones, jammed mobile phone communications, confiscated computers, harassed monks, nuns and lay-Buddhists and subjected them to threats and repeated interrogations. This crackdown is aimed at cutting off the UBCV from its followers and, in the long term, at totally eliminating the UBCV.
The FIDH and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights call on the UN Commission on Human Rights to adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in Vietnam urging the Vietnamese authorities to :
– immediately and unconditionally release all persons detained for the legitimate and peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, notably the UBCV Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang and Venerable Thich Quang Do ;
– take urgent steps to bring “national security” legislation (e.g. espionage) and “administrative detention” into line with the provisions of the ICCPR, as recommended by the Human Rights Committee in July 2002 ;
– implement the recommendations of the UN treaty bodies and special mechanisms, and provide the overdue periodic reports to the treaty bodies concerned (the CESCR due since 1995 and the CRC due since September 2002);
– accept an in situ visit by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and a follow up visit by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion ;
– ratify and implement the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the UN Convention on torture.