Vietnam is making a mockery of its obligations under the UN Human Rights Council, an international rights group said yesterday.
The communist country has rejected a raft of recommendations to improve its rights record raised during a periodic review by the UN Human Rights Council that ended last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement.
“Vietnam — a member of the UN Security Council — has made a mockery of its engagement at the UN Human Rights Council,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director of the New York-based organization.
“Vietnam rejected even the most benign recommendations based on the international covenants it has signed, such as allowing people to promote human rights or express their opinions,” she said.
Hanoi rejected 45 recommendations from UN member states, HRW said, including lifting Internet and blogging controls on privately owned media, allowing groups and individuals to promote human rights, abolishing the death penalty and releasing peaceful prisoners of conscience.
Of the 93 recommendations accepted by the Vietnamese government, many consisted only of broad statements of intent to “consider” proposals by member states, HRW said.
“Shockingly, Vietnam denied to the Human Rights Council that it has arrested and imprisoned hundreds of peaceful dissidents and independent religious activists,” Pearson said.
“Yet in just the four months since Vietnam’s last appearance at the council, it has arrested scores more,” she said.
Vietnam said during the Human Rights Council review process that it had no “so-called ‘prisoners of conscience,’” that no one was arrested for criticizing the government and denied torturing offenders.
“Like China, Vietnam has rebuffed the Human Rights Council in an effort to sanitize its abysmal rights record,” Pearson said.
“The UN’s rights review offers proof to the world that despite international concern, Vietnam has no real intention of improving its record,” she said.
The UN Human Rights Council made its recommendations after one of its regular examinations of a state’s human rights records.
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