In view of the terrible situation confronting human rights defenders and other dissidents in Vietnam, the 35th congress of the FIDH in Quito expresses its deepest concern for the rights and freedom of expression and religion in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The Congress notes that in recent months the Vietnamese authorities have launched a number of campaigns of repression intended to stifle, if not eradicate, all forms of dissidence or, quite simply, all attempts to defend the most basic human rights.
Throughout 2003, the Vietnamese government has prosecuted a large number of dissidents and cyber-dissidents and sentenced them to long prison terms on charges of spying - an offence that can carry a death sentence. Under cover of this accusation the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is punishing anyone who sends even innocuous information abroad, by whatever means, but particularly by e-mail.
In this connection, the FIDH Congress is particularly worried by the following cases: Nguyen Khac Toan, sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for publicising farmers’ complaints; Pham Hong Son, sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for translating into Vietnamese an article about democracy; retired Colonel Pham Que Duong and researcher Tran Khue, arrested in December 2002 for applying for permission to form an independent association against corruption and calling for political reforms; and well-known dissident Nguyen Dan Que, arrested in March 2003 on suspicion of trying to send information abroad by e-mail.
Further, noting that at a historic meeting between the Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on 2 April 2003, the Vietnamese government undertook to grant greater freedom to the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, the Congress regrets and condemns the large-scale repression launched in October 2003 against this Church when all it had done was to organise an internal meeting to appoint its new governing bodies.
The FIDH Congress fears that, by the violent and systematic nature of this repression, the Vietnamese authorities are seeking quite simply to eliminate this historic Church, which represents three-quarters of Vietnam’s 80 million people. It is especially anxious about the fate of the newly appointed dignitaries who have, de jure or de facto, been placed in administrative detention (without trial), particularly 86-year-old Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang and his 75-year-old deputy the Very Venerable Thich Quang Do, both of whom are being held incommunicado and without medical care for their deteriorating state of health.
Stressing that, apart from its purely religious activities, the UBCV is unequivocally committed to defending the human rights of all Vietnamese, the FIDH Congress observes that this repression is not only a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of religion and of conscience, but also and above all an all-out attack by the Vietnamese Party-State against all the civil and political rights that Vietnam undertook to protect and promote when it signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The FIDH Congress therefore calls the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Communist Party to put an end to their repression against dissidents and against the UBCV, to restore their legal status to Churches it does not at present recognise, starting with the UBCV and, sincerely and in conformity with international law, to guarantee human rights as defined in the 1992 Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.