Vietnam's Human Rights Plot To Incite Dissent

Lately, with the backing from ill-intentioned toward Vietnam of some foreign political circles and international organizations, Vietnamese expatriate reactionary organizations and hostile forces have extensively made use of the democracy and human rights issues to increase their sabotage activities against the Vietnamese state with the aim to create an impact for a change to pluralism, multiparty political system and gradually working towards the abolition of the leadership role of the Communist Party and the socialist regime in our country.In implementing their target to "stir up" the opposing atmosphere against the Vietnamese state both in the country and overseas, the expatriate reactionary elements are colluding with a number of local political dissidents to expedite propaganda activities by falsely accusing that Vietnam "violates democracy, human rights and represses religious freedom". Leading reactionary organizations such as "Viet Tan", "Committee for the protection of journalists", "Reporters Without Frontiers" and so on have launched a campaign to propagate a program named "The enemies of the internet" on the occasion of the "World Day Against Cyber Censorship" in order to draw public attention to the distorted tones that the Vietnamese government continuously conducts monitoring and repressive actions on the cyber space and forbids "political dissidents" to write blogs on the internet. They also called upon the three world biggest internet services providers, i.e. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft "not to lend a hand to the Vietnamese Government to control the internet".

Freedom of Religion and Infringes

Nguyen Thi Tram Oanh (Germany) regularly keeps contact with and incites those dragging and extremist protesters whom they called "grieved people" in Danang city to provide information, documents on the so-called local government repression of mass protests so she can introduce to the international public opinion. Bao Khanh, a reporter of the "Vietnam Sydney Radio" in Australia, regularly get in touch through "interviews" with domestic dissident elements such as Nguyen Khac Toan, Tran Anh Kim, Le Thanh Tung, Vi Duc Hoi, Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and others to urge them to collect and provide information or documents that they call "evidences" asserting that the Vietnamese government represses freedom of religion and infringes on human rights. Their sole purpose is to diffuse propaganda activities against Vietnam.These subjects also lobby foreign political circles and international organizations to step up interventions and pressures on Vietnam with regard to democracy and human rights issues with a view to interfere with the juridical reform and global integration process through which they hope to gradually transform the Vietnamese political regime in a way suitable for their interests. With the familiar themes of accusations of infringement upon democracy and human rights, they recommend the American politicians to reinstate Vietnam in the list of countries of particular concern for religious freedom (CPC) and to pass the "Vietnam Human Rights Act 2009-S1159". Some individuals and reactionary organizations have gone as far as to recommend increased pressure and promulgation of new "act", "draft law" and "resolution" to force the Vietnamese government to "implement freedom of speech, to loosen control of internet, to give fair treatment to ethnic minorities and to recognize and protect a number of reactionary organizations and individuals in the country.In order to bypass the Vietnamese relevant agencies inspection that will unmask their real motivation and scheme, these reactionary individuals and organization resort to the old trick of transferring money under the cover of international awards for human rights or payment of "royal ties" to give financial support or encouragement to their local partners. At the beginning of 2009, they lobbied the "International Human Right Watchdog" to present the "2008 Human Rights Award" to a number of domestic activists with awards totaling $ 12,000. A numb er of repor ters from reactionary newspapers and radio networks regularly send "royalties" to more than 20 dissidents in the country for answering their interviews or supplying articles with reactionary content which will be used as propaganda materials against Vietnam. The leaders of "Viet Tan" in Houston, USA are promoting the sending of "Tet gifts" to "democratics" in the country to encourage them "to be more enthusiastic" in their protest activities.

Hostile and Reactionary Forces

Whatever cunning or slandering tones that these hostile and reactionary forces may use, they cannot refute the truth that the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam always regards human beings as the target and motivation of all socio-economic development policies; it always guarantees and promotes all human rights. The 1992 Constitution of Vietnam guarantees that all citizens have equal rights in political, economic, civic and before the law; they have the right to participate in the administration of the State and management of the society; the right to religious freedom; the right to free movement and residence within the country; the right to lodge complaints and denunciations; the right to work, to study, to health care, etc... regardless of their gender, race or religion. On the foundation of the Constitution, Vietnamese law continues to concretize all these rights in accordance with international legal standards on human rights.The implementation of the "Comprehensive strategy for growth and hunger eradication and poverty alleviation" promulgated by the Vietnamese government in May 2002 within the context of the Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the period 2001-2010 has contributed to bring down the rate of poor households (by national poverty criteria) from 58.1 percent in 1993 to 14.82 percent in 2007 and has made Vietnam as one of the few first countries to attain the millennium goal. All development policies of Vietnam always take human people as the center; economic development is for human people with economic growth linked to progress and social equality assurance and must go together with cultural, educational and intellectual development and environment protection and improvement.

Major International Conventions

Vietnam has joined most of the major international conventions on human rights and always supports the activities of the Human Rights Council and fully cooperates with the United Nations human rights institutions. International friends have all acknowledged that Vietnam has in fact attained many achievements on the promotion of human rights, especially the civil and political rights and the rights of the easily hurt groups. We have and are combining with harmony the general value of human rights with the particular conditions of the country while strengthening international cooperation and open dialogue in the field of human rights. The awareness and capacity of the people are being raised so they can fully enjoy these rights.Our Party and State always assert that human rights cannot be separated from national independence and sovereignty. Through indomitable and resilient struggle spanning over many centuries, the Vietnamese people have asserted the most sacred and basic human right is to live in an independent and free country and be able to decide one's own destiny.Along with the implementation of the State's consistent policies to guarantee and promote human rights, the Vietnamese relevant agencies have taken the initiative to unmask individuals and organizations that exploit democracy, human rights issues to work against the Vietnamese state, thus contributing to the safeguarding of national security, political and social stability. However, the stratagem of the reactionary forces to take advantage of the democracy and human rights issues to tarnish the image of the state and to abolish the socialist regime in Vietnam never ceases to diminish, not to say it will increases in the time to come.

Human Rights Situation

Together with heightened vigilance to timely unmask and neutralize all new schemes and cunnings of reactionary expatriate elements , we need to extensively exploit and make use of the services of the internet and other mass media means to step up propaganda work so that the public, the foreign political circles, the members of international organizations and our overseas compatriots can understand the real nature and achievements with regard to human rights in our country and gradually shrug off their mistaken view and suspicion of the democracy and human rights situation in Vietnam before the slandering and distorted tones.
All relevant agencies, departments and branches should take the initiative to provide counsel and formulating of propaganda strategy on democracy and human rights issues and to carry out regular exchanges of information with foreign embassies to fence off the distorted information on these issues that the reactionary expatriate organizations are trying to provide to foreign political circles, national assemblies. Our policy is to promote diplomatic campaigns by unmasking the sabotaging nature of these reactionary forces against the Vietnamese state and by requesting foreign politicians, governments and international organizations not to shelter, tolerate and support these expatriate reactionary individuals and organizations plotting against the Vietnamese state.