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Month: June 2022

Vietnamese citizens question legality of COVID letter of accountability

Editor07 mins

A Vietnamese government ruling that people who refuse a COVID vaccine booster need to write a letter of accountability has received either a negative response or ‘no comment’ from people contacted by RFA. The Ministry of Health issued the regulation, which states that people who do not want a fourth shot need to agree to take responsibility if they later get infected and spread the virus. Many people who spoke to RFA said the ruling had no legal basis. A representative of Ho Chi Minh City’s Center for Disease Control explained to the Thanh Nien newspaper that the request is in line with the Ministry of Health’s assessment of the risks but, so far, the ministry has not explained how people should take responsibility. Radio Free Asia asked Facebook users and human rights activists for their views. Of the 18 people interviewed, seven objected to the request while the remainder declined to comment. Hanoi-based law graduate Bui Quang Thang said there were no legal grounds to insist on another booster shot: “Clause 1, Article 29 of the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases stipulates: Persons at risk of contracting an infectious disease in an epidemic area and traveling to an epidemic area must be vaccinated and take medicines for diseases to which vaccines and medical biological products are available for their prevention.” “Point A, Clause 2, Article 30 of the law above stipulates: The Minister of Health is responsible for promulgating the list of infectious diseases subject to compulsory vaccination and use of medical biological products specified in Clause 1, Article 29 of this law.” “The list of infectious diseases … does not include COVID-19. Therefore, COVID-19 is not an infectious disease that requires vaccination.” Blogger Nguyen Quang Vinh said the decision to refuse a vaccination is up to the individual. “It is not possible to force people to sign a pledge so this government can wash its hands when people have the misfortune to be infected with COVID,” he said, adding that he had received two shots of COVID vaccine but had no intention of getting another because he believed he would not be infected. Social activist Phuong Ngo said the Vietnamese Constitution stipulates the right to inviolability of one’s body, especially in the situation that the whole country has natural herd immunity. Therefore, she believed the ministry’s request was not reasonable. According to statistics website Our World in Data, as of June 25 Vietnam had administered 230 million doses of Coronavirus vaccine, of which more than 80 million people had received two shots, accounting for nearly 83% of the country’s population. Facebook user Do The Dang, a member of the Hanoi No-U football team, said: “This is a very subtle abdication of responsibility because people have rights and making the pledge is a waiver of the government’s responsibility. As for me, I refuse to sign.” The Lao Dong newspaper ran an article on Monday headlined “Signing a commitment if you don’t get the third and fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine: Needs specific regulations.” It carried comments from people in Thu Duc city, who agreed with the health ministry’s request. However, it said there should be “specific instructions on the issue of how to proceed, presented in a way that people can understand.” According to Monday’s edition of the Tuoi Tre online newspaper, many people who disagreed with the fourth injection had agreed to sign the commitment. The newspaper also quoted a ward leader in Ho Chi Minh City as saying: “signing the pledge can only be done by a few people and not everyone agrees to sign,” and if people don’t want to get the fourth shot and don’t sign the commitment medical staff have no choice but to treat them. The official also said most people supported the first two injections and one booster shot, but only a few people supported the fourth shot. Phan Trong Lan, Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Ministry of Health confirmed to the press on Monday that the government considered the booster to be necessary due to the unpredictability of the SARS-COV-2 virus and possible mutations. Another official said that, while there are about 15 million shots of COVID vaccine in the country’s stockpile with expiry dates from July to October this year, the push for people to get the booster is not due to a surplus.

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10 injured as Cambodia cracks down on NagaWorld protest

Editor08 mins

At least ten people were injured Monday when security forces in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh violently dispersed a strike, ramping up a crackdown on workers involved in a six-month-old labor dispute with the NagaWorld Casino. Strikers told RFA Khmer that “hundreds” of security personnel were deployed to set up roadblocks and otherwise stymie the peaceful protest by around 150 mostly female NagaWorld workers near the downtown casino. They said authorities beat them when they wouldn’t board a bus sent to ferry them away from the area, leaving 10 people in need of medical attention. A worker named Chan Srey Roth said a security officer hit her in the head with a walkie talkie and repeatedly insulted her during the incident, while other officers “grabbed male workers by the hair and smashed their heads” against the side of the police vehicle. “They are members of the national security forces, whose duty is to protect the people, not to use violence against them – particularly against women,” she said. “We raised our hands, begging them not to beat us, but they did so anyway, ordering us to disperse. When we interlocked our hands, they tried to break our chain and dragged us off, one by one, to brutally beat us. One of them hit me in the face with a walkie talkie and kicked me, while cursing at me.” Another worker, Phat Channa, said authorities are increasingly turning to violence to break up gatherings by her group as protesters refuse to board the buses police have used to relocate them to Prek Pnov district, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. “They beat me unconscious. I was shocked because they didn’t bother to consider that we are women – they just dragged us away and beat us like dogs,” she said. “We have experienced a lot of injustice. We are only demanding the right to work, but they beat us like beasts.” Other protesters told RFA that authorities prevented civil society representatives and United Nations human rights officials from monitoring Monday’s protest and threatened to confiscate the phones and cameras of anyone seen documenting the incident, unless they deleted their photos and video. A statement issued by the Phnom Penh government claimed that Monday’s protest was “an ugly event that was planned in advance by a handful of people seeking to make the authorities look bad.” “They disrupted social and public order, leading to violence that left a number of authorities injured and resulted in the loss of five walkie talkies and one watch.” Government Human Rights Committee spokesperson Kata Un accused the strikers of holding an illegal rally and called the response by authorities “an educational measure.” “In the case of illegal acts, the authorities have the right to use whatever measures are necessary to stop, disperse, or suppress the perpetrators,” he said. “So far, the Phnom Penh authorities have not taken any repressive measures. What the authorities are doing is educating people to avoid restricted areas and to instead hold protests in Freedom Park [in the Phnom Penh suburbs].” Six-month dispute Thousands of NagaWorld workers walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino, drawing the attention of NGOs and U.N. agencies who have urged Cambodia’s government to stop persecuting them and help resolve their dispute in accordance with labor laws. Cambodian authorities allege that the strikes by NagaWorld workers are part of a “foreign plot to topple the government,” although they have provided no evidence to back up their claim. An increasingly tough response by security personnel led to pushing and shoving during a strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11 that one worker claimed caused her to miscarry her pregnancy two weeks later. Am Sam Ath, chief of General Affairs for Cambodian rights group LICADO, told RFA that authorities have made the NagaWorld dispute worse by leveling allegations against the workers and cracking down on their protests. “We don’t want to see a labor dispute between NagaWorld and its workers turn into a dispute between the authorities and the workers,” he said. “What we want to see is a peaceful settlement to the issue, and these incidents of violence don’t benefit anyone.” Am Sam Ath urged the Ministry of Labor, as well as other relevant state institutions, to remain neutral and end their accusations against the NagaWorld workers and called for a resolution of the dispute in accordance with the law and international labor practices. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Mekong dams must release less water in dry season to preserve habitats, experts say

Editor07 mins

Abnormally high-water levels in the Mekong River at the end of May indicate that dams on the river must release less water during the dry season to protect the ecosystem, experts said at an online panel Monday.  Rain levels during the dry season this year have increased, experts told an online seminar about the unseasonably wet 2022 dry season, hosted by the Washington-based Stimson Center. But they singled out dams, particularly in China and Laos, as adding to the problem of flooding along the lower half of the river, threatening the ecosystems there. The Mekong region is home to numerous species of plants and animals that rely on its annual changes from dry season to wet season and back again, the panelists said. Disruption of the cycle is harmful to many of the species, and in turn the riparian communities that depend on them. “I think our data shows that very clearly the river level there is much higher during the dry season than normal … and China’s dams actually can be part of the solution,” Brian Eyler, Southeast Asia program director of the Stimson Center and co-lead of its Mekong Dam Monitor Project, told the panel on Monday. “They wield a lot of power over the downstream, particularly those two largest dams,” he said. “We found that they can they alone can raise the river level by 50 percent … for total dry season flow. That’s power,” he said, adding that the dams could also help to restore natural flow in times of need. The Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body that helps to coordinate management of the river, reported that May 2022 was the second wettest May since it began collecting data. Total flow in May was 22.8 billion cubic meters, about 150% higher than the average flow of 9 billion cubic meters. The Mekong Dam Monitor’s data suggested that about 6 billion cubic meters from the flow came from dam releases upstream, mostly in China. An example of how the increased flow could affect species is the Mekong Flooded Forest, said Ian Baird, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The World Wildlife Fund said the flooded forest is “a spectacular 27,000 km² complex of freshwater ecosystems including wetlands, sandy and rocky riverine habitats in northern-central Cambodia, bordering the South of Laos.” Baird said that the forest’s most striking feature, trees that jut upward from the floodwaters, relies on drier periods when the trees are not submerged. “Right now what we can see is that, the bushes that are in the lowest part of the river have been heavily impacted. The Blodgett trees have [exhibited] medium impacts,” he said. “So, I mean, things are already bad, but it’s important to understand that they could get a lot worse than they are now. And really the way to mitigate this is to release less water in the dry season,” Baird said. But he said that decisions about upstream releases are mostly beyond Cambodia’s control. “This is all water coming from above Cambodia, you know, but there is a lot that China and Laos could do, especially China, I think, that that could reduce the impact.” The Mekong River ecosystem could be lost if nothing is done, Chea Seila, project manager of the Wonders of the Mekong, a research group that receives funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. She brought up the world record 300-kilogram giant freshwater stingray that was recently caught, tagged by her team and released in Stung Treng. “The discovery of this [world record breaking] fish indicates the special opportunity that we have in Cambodia and also to protect the species, and also the core habitat,” she said. Eyler of the Stimson Center said that although existing dams could help keep the river’s flow closer to expected averages, building more could create new problems. “I would not recommend building more dams to counter this effect, which is a discourse that we’re hearing coming out of the Mekong River Commission, that there’s an investment solution to this, there’s an infrastructure solution to this,” he said. “I think that’s a very expensive, dangerous and risky proposition, particularly when there are solutions at hand,” Eyler said.    

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Tibetan convention calls on governments to help resolve Tibet issue with China

Editor07 mins

Participants at an international meeting on Tibet called on governments to do more to advance the rights of Tibetans who face repression at the hands of the Chinese government. More than 100 participants from 26 countries attended the 8th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet on June 22-23 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the resumption of the Sino-Tibet dialogue and other key objectives. The meeting was organized by the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile based in Dharamsala, India, which sent 10 representatives to the meeting. Attendees agreed to collaborate more fully on matters related to Tibet. They also declared that the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet would be revived and to work to establish groups of lawmakers focused on Tibetan issues in countries where they do not yet exist.  “Substantively what the parliamentarians are willing to do now is a step up from the past,” said Michael van Walt van Praag, the executive president of Kreddha, a nonprofit organization dedicated to resolving intrastate conflicts and promoting peace. “[T]his is bringing home very clearly how important it is to defend the values of freedom, self-determination but also to uphold international law and to stop large countries from invading their small neighbors,” he said. The Central Tibetan Administration, the formal name of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and the Dalai Lama have adopted an approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s present status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedom, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule. “Despite having a thousand years of history of being an independent country, we are sincere and committed to the Middle Way policy to resolve the conflict between Tibet and China through a mutually beneficial way,” Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of the 17th Tibetan Parliament in Exile, said in introductory remarks. The participants also called on parliaments to take coordinated actions to reach a resolution to the Sino-Tibetan conflict through talks and negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. “Tibetans can find a resolution in discussions with China somewhere in the middle between Tibet’s independence and integration with the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” said van Walt. ‘Dangerous assault’ on human rights The participants said China should allow Tibetan Buddhists to appoint the next Dalai Lama and other senior Lamas, which Chinese authorities have said would be a violation of religious freedom. The question of who will replace the current 86-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, has become more pressing. Senior Buddhist monks have traditionally identified successors based on spiritual signs and visions, but the Chinese government in 2011 declared that only Beijing can appoint his successor. “Politically we are not seeking independence for Tibet,” said the Dalai Lama in a video message to the delegates. “I have made this clear over the years. What most concerns us is the importance of preserving and safeguarding our culture and language.” In their declaration, the participants also asked governments to prohibit corporations from benefiting from forced labor and the exploitation of the natural environment of the Tibetan plateau. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who spoke at the meeting, said that China has “waged a dangerous assault on human rights in Tibet” for decades. “The Chinese government has clearly shown that it has no regard for Tibetan autonomy or identity or faith,” she said. “This aggression has not only accelerated in recent years, with new actions to impose mandatory political education, cruelly restrict religious freedom, expand its mass surveillance regime and further close off Tibet to global visitors.” Pelosi also said that U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), would introduce bipartisan legislation to update the Tibet China Conflict Act, which would clearly state the history of Tibet and encourage a peaceful resolution to the ultimate status of Tibet. During the CECC hearing on Tibet on June 23, McGovern said that the U.S. and the world community were not doing enough to help resolve the Tibet issue. “Tibet’s true representatives are His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile as recognized by the Tibetan people, so any solution and way forward has to be what Tibetans want and cannot be imposed by anyone who is not part of Tibetan community,” he said. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Myanmar junta deploys loudspeakers in bid to prompt PDF surrender

Editor011 mins

Myanmar’s junta has launched a campaign urging local members of the armed opposition to surrender, vowing to step down following elections planned for 2023, but prodemocracy fighters on Monday dismissed the move as a sign of desperation from a military regime barely clinging to power. Beginning on June 12, state-run media outlets published an announcement by the junta calling on members of all armed groups — including the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group it has labeled a terrorist organization — to lay down their weapons and return to civilian life. Three days later, residents told RFA Burmese that they began hearing similar messages over loudspeakers from vehicles escorted by the military through several cities and townships. “Their message was that they will be holding elections … and power will be handed over to the victorious [political] party, so they want the PDFs to give up their arms and surrender to the law,” said a resident of Myanmar’s second city Mandalay, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that people “ignored the announcements.” Various armed resistance groups that have sworn loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) told RFA that surrendering to the junta is not an option. Sein Kyaw, the head of the Myaung Revolution Army in embattled Sagaing region’s Myaung township, said he and his fellow fighters must refrain from responding to the military convoys with calls of the same offer. “There are people from their side who came to join [us]. … There are officers and soldiers who left the army. We PDFs are fighting against them as a people’s movement because we can’t tolerate their rule,” he said. “We have no intention of surrendering to them. We will fight until the terrorist military dictatorship is uprooted and a federal democratic union established, leaving no dictators in our country.” Sein Kyaw said the junta is incapable of rule, noting that his and several other townships in Sagaing lack operating schools, and suggesting that an election next year is unlikely as there is little coordination between the executive, judicial and legislative branches of the government. A spokesman for the Sagaing-based Ranger Kalay Defense Force, who also declined to be named, told RFA that the military’s invitation is seen as a political ploy. “I don’t think they have the power to conquer us at this time and they are making this move knowing that they cannot win,” he said. “No matter how much they implore us, we will not fall for this. We will do what is right until the very end.” A photo released by Myanmar’s military shows members of the PDF surrendering to junta authorities, June 20, 2022. Credit: Myanmar military Dividing the opposition PDF groups also slammed the military’s call for their surrender while offering to hold peace talks with the country’s ethnic armed groups, which they said was a tactic intended to create a schism within the opposition. Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in April called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to hold peace talks and end armed conflict with the military, but he refused to meet with the PDF, and observers say there is little chance that a resolution can be reached without all stakeholders taking part in negotiations. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun has said that there will be no talks with the NUG, the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives, or the PDF because their objectives “are totally different from that of the ethnic armed groups” and “terrorist” in nature. But Naing Htoo Aung, secretary of the NUG’s Ministry of Defense, said Monday that peace will not be possible in Myanmar without the participation of the NUG and the PDF. “For many years, the military has used a strategy to divide the unity of the armed resistance, and it’s doing the same even now,” he said. “There can be no internal peace without the NUG or PDF, without a genuine intention of leaving politics by the military, or without accountability for their misdeeds or a strong commitment to a federal democracy.” Naing Htoo Aung said that, given the current political climate, elections are unlikely in 2023. If the junta pushes forward with a vote, he added, it will not reflect the will of the people. A spokesman for the Saw Township People’s Administration in Magway region, which operates under the NUG government, said that even if the military holds an election next year, no one in his region will participate. “I think an election is impossible, especially in our area. They can’t even operate their [administrative] machinery here and if they try to hold an election, there will be no election staff,” he said. “A war of resistance is continuing nationwide. Some of the military camps have even been taken over. They might be able to hold sham elections in cities they control like Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyidaw … but a nationwide election is impossible.” Junta defections According to the junta, at least 66 PDF fighters have handed over their weapons since the call to surrender was issued earlier this month, although RFA was unable to independently verify the claim. Political observer Than Soe Naing disputed the claim and suggested that the junta had issued the call to surrender as a tactic to end defections by members of the military and boost morale. “So far, the number of soldiers and policemen who have defected is more than 20,000, so I think this is a political ploy to stop [the defections],” he said, adding that “no PDF fighter has willingly surrendered.” He said that the opposition must defeat the military before an election is held next year if the people of Myanmar have any hope of reinstating democracy, as the junta will almost certainly install a puppet “civilian government” that will preserve its rule. Since 2010, there have been three general elections in Myanmar. The military overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu…

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Superstitious strongman

Editor01 mins

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen changed his official birthdate to Aug. 5, 1952 from April 4, 1951, a switch he said corrected a mistake from back when it was registered during wartime in the Southeast Asian country. But critics say the highly superstitious strongman moved his birth from the Year of the Rabbit to the Year of the Dragon, considered auspicious to followers of the Chinese zodiac. Some reports said he changed the date after the recent death of his older brother, fearing the birthdate he had been using may have led to his brother’s demise because it conflicted with the Chinese zodiac.

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Chinese company faces hefty bill to quarantine 300 North Korean workers

Editor06 mins

A clothing company in China must pay U.S. $1,500 to quarantine each of its 300 North Korean workers after some of them tested positive for COVID-19, sources in China told RFA. Some Chinese employees at the factory in Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea, also tested positive for the virus. All of them went into quarantine last week, but the high cost of isolating foreign workers means the company will have to shell out $450,000 to quarantine the North Koreans. “The news that the Chinese president of the company that hired the 300 North Koreans must pay for their treatment is disturbing to the other companies that use North Korean labor,” a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Korean Service. “The Chinese government has decided that the quarantine cost for foreigners is 10,000 yuan (about $1,500) per person. The head of the company may incur an irrecoverable debt from the quarantine costs alone,” the source said. North Korea sends workers overseas to places like China and Russia to earn desperately needed foreign cash. The workers must give the lion’s share of their salaries to their government, but what they get to keep is far more than what they could earn in a similar job at home. Most of the North Korean workers in the factory are female, according to the source.  “The quarantine command in Dandong … rushed all the workers to the hospital facility on a large bus,” the source said. The clothing company is not the first to have to quarantine its North Korean workers, according to the source. “In May, there were 20 North Koreans who worked for another company in Dandong and were placed in quarantine when they showed symptoms of COVID-19. In that case, they were quarantined in the company’s dormitory because there was no room in the hospital due to the outbreak spreading through Dandong,” he said. The company with the 300 North Koreans originally produced clothes, but switched to making COVID-19 protective clothing, he said. “The 300 North Korean workers wore the protective clothing [that they made] while they worked, but they still failed to prevent their own infection,” said the source. A North Korean source living in the port of Donggang, within the city limits of Dandong, told RFA that owners of companies who hire North Korean workers are getting nervous after hearing about the 300 quarantined North Koreans. “North Korean workers who are known to be infected with COVID-19 were transferred to the quarantine facility by several large buses,” the second source said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Most Dandong residents go to a hospital in Shenyang or Dalian when they get COVID-19, so it is likely the North Koreans are there,” he said. Dandong is a three-hour drive from Shenyang and a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Dalian. Confirming their whereabouts could be difficult, however. “Although the Dandong city government has lifted the COVID-19 lockdown, it has not yet guaranteed complete autonomous movement. There is therefore no way to know exactly where the North Korean workers have gone unless you’re somehow involved,” he said. According to RFA sources, about 30,000 North Korean workers are believed to be in the Dandong area. North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019. But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Married couple tied up and shot by regime forces in Tanintharyi region

Editor04 mins

Two people in their sixties were tied up and shot dead at close range by junta forces and their allies at a village in Myanmar’s southwestern Tanintharyi region on Sunday as revenge attacks by troops and their militia allies increase. Around 15 troops, and militia members from a nearby village entered Kadakgyi village in Launglon township, Dawei district, according to an official from the Democracy Movement Strike Committee (DMSC), Dawei district. The official identified the married couple as Thaung Win and Win Aye (nicknamed Mi Kyone). He said militia members from Pande village took part in the killings. “They came into the village and cuffed the couple’s hands behind their backs. The couple were shot dead in the street. I could not see any badges, but there were military intelligence and military-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee members,” the official said. The two villagers were shot in their heads, eyes, stomachs and backs, the official told RFA, adding that the bodies had been taken to a morgue. The couple had been involved in the anti-regime movement and supported young protesters, the official said. Junta forces and their militia allies looted houses after the killings. CREDIT: Democracy Movement Strike Committee, Dawei district. Local residents said the junta forces raided five houses in Kadakgyi village and took money and valuables after killing the couple. They say the troops and militia destroyed homes and belongings that were not claimed by villagers. The military council has not released a statement about the incident and calls to a military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Monday. The DMSC statement said six civilians had been shot dead and two injured by junta forces and Pyu Saw Htee groups between June 16 and 26. There has been a rise in attacks involving pro-junta militia in Tanintharyi recently. The Soon Ye (Kite Force) militia is thought to be behind the shooting deaths of three villagers in Launglon township on April 28 and another killing on the road  between Dawei and Launglon on May 3. The day before the second killing, the militia wrote on Facebook that it had the addresses of anti-coup protesters and would harm their families if they did not stop their activities. At least 2,021 people have been killed in Myanmar since the coup on February 1, 2021 to June 24 this year, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Figures gathered by Data for Myanmar between February 1, 2021 and April 28, 2022 show that 27 people had been killed in Taninthary, the sixth highest level of 15 regions.

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Vietnam falls far short of its committment to freedom of expression, report says

Editor05 mins

Vietnam has a long way to go before it can realize its goal of joining the UN Human Rights council, according to the Vietnam Human Rights Network (VNHRN). The pressure group points to Vietnam’s treatment of journalists, who the government says are protected from all forms of discrimination and violence. “In fact, the arrests and imprisonment of those who use the right to freedom of expression to voice their opinions are at their peak,” the report said. From the beginning of 2021 to May 31 this year, VNHRN said at least 48 people were arrested and detained, and 72 were given heavy sentences. “Most of them were convicted for allegedly using the media to express their opinions and aspirations other than the ruling party’s. To our knowledge, Vietnamese authorities currently imprison at least 290 political and religious prisoners with multi-year sentences,” the report said. Along with restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and information, VNHRN’s president Nguyen Ba Tung told RFA the government is ignoring many more basic human rights, describing the 2019 labor law as an empty promise and also criticizing the government’s track record on religion. “Regarding the right to religious freedom, the government has increased its control and manipulation of religious organizations and eliminated non-registered religious groups,” he said, adding that the government has promoted political dogma over religious faith. “We raised the issue of children being indoctrinated in schools as well as in organizations like Uncle Ho’s Good Children – an issue that has not been raised in any international report on the issue of children’s rights.” Nguyen said that no international research agency has talked about the discrimination faced by non-party members no matter how well they had served the country in the past. “Someone raised the fact that military officers must be party members, which violates the basic rights of people in the political sphere and even as a citizen in defending one’s homeland,” he said. VNHRN’s report covers last year and the first few months of 2022. It was put together with help from several activists in Vietnam. The study focuses on the areas outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Conventions on Human Rights that Vietnam has committed to observing. Those rights are: liberty, security of person, a fair trial by an independent, impartial tribunal; the right to participate in national political life, freedom of expression and information, freedom of religion and worship; the right to work and enjoy the fruits of that labor, equal treatment and non-discrimination, and well-being. VNHRN said the aim of the report is to alert the world about what it called “the alarming human rights situation in Vietnam today.” The report also offers the Vietnamese government what VNHRN called “concrete and feasible recommendations for the Vietnamese government to terminate its repeated violations throughout the years.” VNHRN said that until Vietnam improved its human rights record members of the United Nations General Assembly should vote against Vietnam’s membership of its Human Rights Council.

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Interview: ‘They’ve broken their word, as I’m afraid they do regularly’

Editor06 mins

Veteran British politician Chris Patten served as the last governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997, overseeing the final years of British rule over the colony and helping arrange for its transfer to China in 1997.  He was vilified by the Chinese Communist Party for introducing democratic reforms in the city, many of which have been rolled back by Beijing in recent years in a crackdown in response to protests demanding more freedoms. Patten, 78, who holds the title Baron Patten of Barnes and serves as chancellor of the University of Oxford, spoke the Amelia Loi of RFA Cantonese about the changes in Hong Kong as the July 1 25th anniversary of the handover approaches. RFA: How do you assess the changes in Hong Kong in the 25 years since the handover? Patten: Hong Kong when we left was like a Rolls Royce. The economy was doing very well. It was stable and the system of government worked very well. The civil service was terrific. All you really needed to do as the Chinese Communist regime was to turn on the ignition and off it would pop. Hong Kong was an exceptionally successful community ––the eighth largest trading community in the world and we never had the sort of demonstrations which have affected Hong Kong in the last few years. I had very much hoped it would continue as long as possible and the Chinese had promised that it would continue for 50 years. They’ve broken their word, as I’m afraid they do regularly. They break their word. They break international treaties whenever it suits them. And I think that’s happening again this time. RFA: What do you say to those who say Britain should not have trusted China and returned Hong Kong? Patten: We had no choice but to hand Hong Kong over because all the New Territories where there seven large cities were held on a 99-year lease.  And we would have been in breach of international law if we’d tried to hold onto them.  So we had no choice and it’s sad but true. We could have held onto the part of Hong Kong which was held under a grant but it would have been impossible to hold onto the island. What would you have done for water? You would have to be bringing in water in container ships I suppose, but it would have been absolutely impossible and unreasonable. I don’t think we had any alternative but to do that. RFA: What do think of voices calling for Hong Kong independence? Patten: I have never been an advocate of independence of Hong Kong because I was part of a diplomatic effort to ensure Hong Kong could return to China, retaining its way of life for 50 years after 1997. The fact that the independence movement has grown in Hong Kong is an indication of how badly China has behaved and how little people actually trust China today. It’s an extraordinary thing that so few people are actually proud of Hong Kong being part of China now. There’s a great sense of Hong Kong citizenship, and there’s a great sense that people are Hong Kongers but only a small number think of themselves as Chinese. RFA: Would a different leadership of the Chinese Communist Party make a difference for Hong Kong? Patten: It would help Hong Kong and China if the leadership in China…was a little more like that of Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao. What of course Deng Xiaoping had hoped for is that they wouldn’t again have a return to sort of Maoism, which is what’s happened, and wouldn’t again have a return to personality cults, which is again what’s happened. I think that’s all particularly sad, but I am not sure if there is anything we can do at the moment.

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Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0