[huridocs-tech] Vietnam: UN Delegates should condemn Internet arrests

(New York, March 31, 2003) — Vietnam’s use of espionage charges against
peaceful dissidents clearly violates Vietnam’s international human
rights obligations and this practice should be strongly condemned by
delegates at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights now meeting
in Geneva, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Vietnam has signed UN treaties protecting the right to free expression.
Yet it’s locking up citizens using the Internet to express their views,”
said Brad Adams, executive director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.
“This is going on while Vietnam is participating in deliberations of the
United Nations’ highest human rights body. Delegates should publicly
call on Vietnam to cease these arrests.”

Human Rights Watch condemned the arrest of noted physician Dr. Nguyen
Dan Que on March 17, 2003 outside his home in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to the Vietnamese foreign ministry, Dr. Que will be prosecuted
under Article 80 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code for sending information
critical of the Vietnamese government via the Internet. Article 80 covers
crimes of espionage and carries a sentence ranging from twelve years to
the death penalty. Officials claim he was arrested at an Internet café,
though his family disputes this claim. Police searched his house and
confiscated his laptop computer and written essays.

Dr. Que, a well-known democracy and human rights advocate, was released
as part of a prisoner amnesty in 1998 while serving a 20-year prison
sentence.  Even upon his release, he has remained under heavy
surveillance and has been prohibited from resuming his medical practice
as an endocrinologist. His family has had no access to him since his
arrest on March 17.

Last year, Human Rights Watch honored him with Hellman/Hammett grant, an
award recognizing repressed writers worldwide.

“Dr. Que should be immediately and unconditionally released,” said
Adams. “Under international law, he has committed no crime.”

Other dissidents in Vietnam have been detained in recent months and
given harsh sentences, many of them for using the Internet to express
their views.  Last December, Nguyen Khac Toan was sent to prison for
twelve years on charges of espionage. An appeal of his sentence is set
to be heard on April 2.

Pham Que Duong was arrested on December 28, 2002 and indicted under
Article 80, but has not yet been put on trial. He is 71 years old and a
former colonel in the People’s Liberation Army who quit the Communist
Party and became a democracy activist; his family is not allowed to
provide him urgently needed food and medicine in prison.

Last October, Li Chi Quang was arrested in an Internet café in Hanoi
while sending an email message to a democracy advocate abroad. He
received a four-year sentence on charges of disseminating propaganda
against the state.

Pham Hong Son was arrested in March 2002 and charged with espionage
under Article 80. His crime was to have translated an article on
democracy from the U.S. Embassy website, which he sent to some of his
friends and senior Vietnamese officials. The translation was later
posted on the Internet.

Vietnam is currently one of 53 members of the UN Commission on Human
Rights. It has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), which, under Article 19, protects the right to
“seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless
of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, or through any
other media of his choice.”

Vietnam’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dao Viet Trung, spoke
at the Commission in Geneva on March 19 and specifically referred to
Hanoi’s commitment to the ICCPR. “Under the Constitution, laws and
policies of the State of Vietnam, human rights in all their aspects are
guaranteed,” he declared. “Our goal has always been to ensure the better
realization of the rights and welfare of the people.”  Human Rights
Watch urged UN delegates, in their speeches and public comments, to call
for an immediate end to the wave of recent arrests.

To read recent Human Rights Watch documents on Vietnam, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam.php


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