Press Release

Press Release

Que Me : Action for Democracy in Vietnam
Que Me : Action pour la Démocratie au Vietnam
Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
Comité Vietnam pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme
BP 63 - 94472 Boissy Saint Léger cedex - France
Tel. +33 1 45 98 30 85 - Fax +33 1 45 98 32 61
E-mail : queme@compuserve.com

For Immediate Release
Paris, August 16, 2002

In a Petition to the XI Session of the National Assembly in Hanoi:

Twenty-one Prominent Dissidents call for the creation of a Constitutional Court to sanction violations of fundamental ! freedoms in Vietnam

Shortly after the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva issued a list of concerns on violations of international human rights law and human rights abuses in Vietnam, twenty-one prominent dissidents, most of them former high-ranking Communist Party officials, military veterans and academics close to the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) sent a forceful petition to the National Assembly and the Vietnamese leadership demanding radical legal reforms to ensure protection of human rights. The Petition, dated August 2, 2002, calls on the newly-elected National Assembly to create a Constitutional Court to review anti-democratic legislation and bring domestic laws into line with the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It also calls for the establishment of an independent anticorruption body, the publication of the controversial Sino-Vietnamese Border Treaties, and legal safeguards to stem State repression against citizens on account of their legitimate opposition views.

Referring to themselves as a "democracy group" of voters, the Petition's signatories name their spokesmen as Colonel Pham Que Duong, respected military historian and former editor of the People's Army's "Military History Journal", and Ho Chi Minh City-based academic Tran Khuê. The other signatories are Hoang Minh Chinh, former Dean of the Hanoi Marxist-Leninist Institute of Philosophy, military veteran Vu Cao Quan, journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, geophysicist Nguyen Thanh Giang, writer Hoang Tien, poet Chu Thanh, revolutionary veterans Tran Dung Tien, Tran Dai Son, Nguyen Thu, Phan Long, Vu Kinh, Nguyen Manh Son, Nguyen Van Tan, Nguyen Huu Tien and Dao Duc Kha, all of whom have been Party members for over 50 years. Three women, mothers and wives of detained government critics, also joined their names to this appeal: Nguyen Kim Chung, mother of cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang, Vu Thuy Ha, wife of cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son, and Nguyen Thi Quyet, mother of ex-soldier Nguyen Khac Toan. The twenty-one dissidents, most of whom are currently under house arrest or strict Police surveillance, gave their full addresses on the Petition. (NB - the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights has this document on file, and can provide these addresses on request). Their 4-point demands include :

1) The fight against corruption: Despite pious promises by the Party, "corruption continues to spread. It has become increasingly sophisticated, protected by cronyism, more shamelessly flaunted, reaching proportions of a national disaster, like an invasion from within taking place before our very eyes". The Petition cites the case of the notorious Nam Cam criminal gang, which implicates many high-ranking Party officials. Two Central Committee members, Tran Mai Hanh and Bui Quoc Huy have been demoted, but none have been jailed. For years, attempts to arrest the gang, even by top-government leaders such as former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet and Interior Minister Bui Thien Ngo have been foiled because of the Nam Cam mafia's "good connections". "This means that the Nam Cam gang was protected by higher powers than Vo Van Kiet and Bui Thien Ngo. Who was covering [Nam Cam] ? Newspapers exposing the affair were silenced. Rumours say it was the Politburo that deliberately protected these outrageous criminals ?!" The Party's anti-corruption drive is run by corrupt officials, and thus is doomed to failure, declared the Petition's signatories. "If you lose the people's trust, you lose everything. We urge the National Assembly to hold a Hearing on the Nam Cam affair and recognize the people's right to set up their own Anti-corruption Association. Only the people can truly combat corruption - how can corrupt officials be entrusted to eliminate corruption?" If the new National Assembly dares not take such steps, it will prove itself to be a rubber-stamp organ just like its predecessors, said the Petition, "serving the Corrupt Communist Mandarins, not the interests of the people. In brief, it will have betrayed and deceived the people".

2) The Sino-Vietnamese Border Treaties: The Petition's signatories demand why the Vietnamese electorate has never been informed on the exact terms of the 1999 Land Border Treaty and 2000 Sea Border Treaty signed between Hanoi and Beijing. "Exactly how much land and sea has been conceded to China ? Did the previous National Assembly ratify the Land Treaty? Has the Sea Treaty ever been ratified ? Why were the terms of these treaties kept secret? The Government must be compelled to explain these issues to the National Assembly" and be "publicly accountable to the people."

"If these Treaties disserve our nation's interests, the National Assembly has the right to denounce them. If you don't, we shall all be guilty of a crime against our ancestors and all future generations. History will condemn the Communist Party and the National Assembly for sacrificing our land to a foreign power. Posterity will condemn you, and the people will curse you forever".

3) Repression and detention of citizens for their alternative opinions: "Security Police harassment, interrogation and detention of citizens because of their democratic views is increasing daily"'. The Petition gives a chronology of repression since the Party's Ninth Congress in April 2001, citing many cases involving the twenty-one signatories themselves. These include the arrest of military veteran Vu Cao Quan, the confiscation of Lt. General Tran Do's "Memoires", the government clamp-down on dissidents applying to found an anti-corruption association led by Colonel Pham Que Duong and Tran Khuê. According to the Petition, over twenty dissidents, intellectuals and CVP veterans were harassed in this clamp-down, and the Hanoi Security Police organised "public denunciation sessions reminiscent of those held during the Land Reforms" to denounce these men. Several democracy activists are currently detained without trial in Hanoi, e.g. ex-soldier Nguyen Khac Toan, 47, arrested for helping farmers to file complaints to the National Assembly; lawyer Le Chi Quang, 31, Dr Pham Hong Son, journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, former columnist for the official "Communist Review". The Petition also deplores the detention of religious figures such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam's Deputy leader Thich Quang Do, Le Quang Liem (Hoa Hao) and Roman Catholic Father Nguyen Van Ly.

"The systematic, blatant, immoral and unlawful repression is increasing, in flagrant violation of the Constitution and law. After the suppression of the Nhan Van Giai Pham literary group and the "Anti-revisionist" purges (of the 1950-60s), this is one of the darkest periods for Vietnamese culture, thinking and civilisation". Even criminals in Western countries fare better than dissidents in Vietnam, says the Petition. Western prisoners can use telephones, whilst the lines of virtually all Vietnamese dissidents have been cut. The signatories urge the National Assembly to respect the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, and call on the international community to press Vietnam to respect fundamental human rights instruments such as the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Vietnam acceded in 1982.

4) The Creation of a Constitutional Court: The Petition calls on the National Assembly to set up a Constitutional Court to examine violations of Constitutional law. In Vietnam today, whilst fundamental freedoms are formally guaranteed in the 1992 Constitution, they are restricted! by a whole series of laws, regulations and directives issued by the Party and government. The Press Law, for example, prohibits the publication of privately-owned newspapers, and thus violates Article 69 of the Constitution on freedom of expression and the press. Decree 31/CP on "Administrative Detention", which allows Police to detain citizens without trial for up to two years, violates Article 79 and 2 of the Constitution which guarantee the presumption of innocence. "The Constitution is the Mother of all laws. All legislation must conform with the Constitution. But when the people complain that their rights are abused, the authorities quote all kinds of regulations to contradict their claims. The Mother of Laws is contradicted by its children ! (.) These growing problems cannot be solved unless we set up a Constitutional Court to judge and punish officials who issue anti-constitutional directives. This is the only way we can truly move towards a society grounded on the rule of law.

Back