Vietnam jailing activists in violation of agreement with the EU
Four international human rights NGOs lodged a complaint with the European Commission, saying that the human rights provisions in the 2019 Vietnam-EU free trade agreement were being ignored. They document 40 emblematic cases of men and women in prison for up to 20 years for their actions in favour of sustainable development and workers' rights.
Brussels (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Yesterday, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), its member organisation Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR), Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), and Global Witness lodged a complaint with the European Commission’s trade department, accusing the Vietnamese government of systematically cracking down on individuals and organisations involved in sustainable development.
Such action, they assert, violates the commitments made in the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) that entered into force in August 2020.
“The government of Vietnam is imprisoning individuals who express legitimate concerns on environmental protection, labour and land rights violations, and the socio-economic impacts of infrastructure and investment projects. This crackdown is unacceptable and also undermines effective monitoring of the EVFTA’s sustainable development clauses,” said Gaëlle Dusepulchre, Deputy Director of FIDH’s Business, Human Rights and Environment Desk.
The EU trade agreement includes trade and sustainable development measures that require partners to ratify and implement fundamental international labour rights and environmental conventions, and to commit to ensuring civil society participation, freedom of association, and access to information.
Instead, in recent years, the Vietnamese government has intensified its violations of rights, cracking down on critical voices with the stated aim of silencing any form of peaceful dissent.
Starting in 2021, Vietnamese authorities have expanded the range of offences against human rights advocates.
In addition to using the vaguely worded "national security" in Vietnam’s Penal Code, they have used politically motivated charges of "tax evasion" or disclosure of "classified information" to arrest prominent climate change leaders and labour reformers.
Extensive legislation, such as Decree 126 of 2024, has been adopted to restrict the formation and operations of civil society groups, preventing workers from organising in independent trade unions and failing to establish a robust legal framework for workers' rights.
The four NGOs that filed the complaint estimate that dozens of environmental, land and labour rights defenders are currently arbitrarily detained in Vietnam.
In the complaint they filed, they document about 40 emblematic cases of men and women serving prison sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 20 years for their actions in favour of sustainable development.
In some cases, the clampdown affected people who were trying to inform EU institutions. For example, journalist Pham Chi Dung (pictured) was arrested in 2019, just two days after sending a video message to the European Parliament calling for the agreement to be postponed.
Before he was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022, environmental lawyer Dang Dinh Bach had been actively advocating for civil society participation in the Vietnam’s Domestic Advisory Group, a body tasked with discussing and advising on the EVFTA’s implementation.
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