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Updated Sept. 23, 2024, 2:48 p.m. ET
A U.N. expert has urged Vietnam's government to ensure that all its citizens have the right to participate in the development process, as the country's top leader To Lam prepares to speak before the United Nations General Assembly.
Surya Deva, who visited Vietnam last November as special rapporteur on the right to development, gave a presentation in Geneva on Sept. 18, within the framework of the 57th Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Vietnamese state media highlighted Deva's praise for progress in areas such as poverty reduction, sanitation and infrastructure development.
Deva also told the meeting many government officials talked to him during his visit about the importance of ensuring inclusivity, including of disadvantaged or vulnerable groups, when drawing up or amending laws, formulating policies and approving projects.
But the U.N. expert said that during meetings with companies and NGOs in the four provinces he visited, many business leaders and development workers complained they were often unable to play a significant role in decision-making.
“While consultations are generally conducted by various government authorities, these are often not meaningful in practice,” he wrote in a report released by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Responding to Deva’s comments, Ambassador Mai Phan Dung, head of the Permanent Mission of Vietnam in Geneva, said Vietnam had a consistent policy towards promoting and protecting human rights, including the right to development.
He said the Vietnamese government put people at the center of every development strategy, based on the slogan “people know, people discuss, people do, people inspect, people supervise, people benefit.”
He also said that authorities never sacrificed the environment for economic development.
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One Hanoi-based activist, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia recent events had given the lie to Dung’s comments.
“After Typhoon Yagi and flash floods in many places in the north, everyone saw the price of rapid development resulting in environmental destruction without achieving development goals,” he said.
People had absolutely no role in policy making at the local or national level, the activist added. In fact, he said some local authorities and agencies only asked people for their opinions in order to use any criticism of government policy as evidence against them.
Former prisoner of conscience Dang Thi Hue called government bodies self-serving and undemocratic.
“All groups and agencies are established only to receive salaries and follow the Party’s instructions, while the people are left out of the election of leaders as well as the process of nation building,” she said.
Hue added after flash floods and landslides in Thai Nguyen province in August, some people criticized the response plan and lack of relief for the people affected. They were then “invited” by the police to “work on” their social media statements.
Using the law to suppress dissent
In the report on his Vietnam trip, Deva raised concerns about the government’s selective use of the law, particularly Articles 117 and 331 of the criminal code which cover “propaganda against the state” and “abusing democratic freedoms,” to silence criticism of government decisions and policies.
He also noted the government’s tight control of the registration and activities of civil society organizations and strict requirements for approving public gatherings, protests and parades.
Deva said authorities imposed numerous restrictions on freedom of speech and expression, including strict monitoring of social media and warned that repeated legal action against human rights activists had resulted in fewer people willing to speak out against injustice.
He recommended that Vietnam pardon or commute the sentences of all imprisoned environmental activists who peacefully raised legitimate concerns or complaints and demonstrated leadership in promoting human rights for all.
“Considering that Vietnam is highly affected by climate change, the government should work with development partners and environmental human rights defenders to build resilience and achieve a moderate transition to a green economy,” he said at Wednesday’s meeting in Geneva.
Communist Party General Secretary To Lam is due to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Lam told the U.N. Summit of the Future that sustainability and human well-being must be at the center of development, Vietnamese media reported.
Two days earlier, Vietnam released climate campaigner Hoang Thi Minh Hong, who was 12 months into a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion, along with human rights human rights campaigner and internet blogger Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, who was eight months short of completing his 16-year sentence.
Hong is one of six prominent climate activists, jailed since 2021 on charges of “tax evasion” or “document appropriation” while To Lam was Vietnam’s minister of public security.
Thuc referred to his release as a “forced pardon” or forced return in a Facebook post on Saturday, after he returned home, saying he had been “carried out of the prison despite the objections of [my] fellow political prisoners.”
“More than 20 staff members of Prison No. 6 rushed into my cell and read a notice stating that the State President had signed Amnesty Decision No. 940 ... granting me a pardon," he wrote. "As a result, I became free and was no longer allowed to stay in prison. I immediately protested, saying that I was not guilty and had no reason to accept the pardon, and that I would not go anywhere."
Thuc said he was taken to the airport and "forced to board a late flight [home] to Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City],” adding that he "did not want to gain my freedom through that [kind of] amnesty.”
According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam currently holds more than 160 political prisoners, which Hanoi denies.
Protest at UN
On Sunday, around 100 Vietnamese Americans from several U.S. northeastern states and Toronto, Canada, gathered in front of the U.N. headquarters in New York to protest To Lam's visit to the U.S.
The protesters carried yellow flags with three red stripes -- a symbol representing Vietnamese refugees -- and banners in English with messages such as: “Human rights for Vietnam,” “Vietnamese President To Lam is criminal of kidnapping,” and “Vietnam is a police state under Gen. To Lam.”
In a phone conversation with RFA, lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, who is living in the U.S. as a refugee and participated in the demonstration, said the protest demonstrated the stance of the overseas Vietnamese community, who are “opposed to the oppressive policies on human rights, democracy, and freedom that the Vietnamese government is enforcing on its people.”
Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, Chairman of the Brotherhood for Democracy, flew from Germany to the U.S. to take part in the protest because Lam "does not deserve to represent Vietnam ... in addressing the international community."
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This story was updated to include information about Tran Huynh Duy Thuc's release from prison and a protest of To Lam's visit to the U.S.