September 08, 2023

REPS. CORREA, STEEL, LOFGREN, SMITH RAISE ALARM OVER HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM AHEAD OF PRESIDENT BIDEN’S VISIT

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Today, Representatives Lou Correa (CA-46), Michelle Steel (CA-45), Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), and Chris Smith (NJ-04), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Vietnam Caucus, penned a letter to President Joe Biden ahead of his upcoming trip to Vietnam, urging him to use this opportunity to address human rights abuses, secure the release of prisoners of conscience, and extract a guarantee that there will be no further unjust arrests.

“As you know, Vietnam has an abysmal record on human rights, and the crackdown on activism and dissent has continued to intensify in recent years. In this regard, they seem to follow the example of the Chinese Communist Party, with which the Vietnamese Communist Party retains significant party-to-party ties,” the members wrote. “Many of the prisoners of conscience in Vietnam have been dealt overly harsh sentences after trials that lack any semblance of due process, and some have been imprisoned more than once.”

Over the past two years, Vietnam’s one-party state has imprisoned key leaders of the country’s climate change movement on false charges of tax evasion. A human rights investigation published in April documents clear evidence that these prosecutions are politically driven and designed to criminalize policy activism. The failure to sanction Vietnam for this lawless behavior has had a chilling effect—with state authorities, in effect, taxing U.S. aid and using the threat of criminal prosecution for "tax evasion” as a cudgel to suppress the emergence of an independent civil society, while restricting basic rights to freedom of association and speech.

In their letter, the Members specifically ask the President, in his negotiations with Vietnamese state and party leaders, to pursue the following commitments:

  • Unconditional release of prisoners of conscience;
  • Guarantee of a moratorium on arrests of human rights activists; and
  • Amnesty for all prisoners of conscience before any arms sales are made to Vietnam.

The Members request that as the President considers upgrading the United States relationship with Vietnam to a Strategic Partnership, that he “strongly weigh the lack of progress on human rights…[as] [t]he upcoming visit to Vietnam presents an opportunity to push for meaningful improvements in the situation for human rights” in the region.

You can read the full text of the letter HERE.

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