Far Eastern Economics Review
July 3, 2003
Editorial
Vietnam's Odd Definition Of Human Rights
PRESIDENT Tran Duc Luong recently said in an interview: "I'm very proud that
Vietnam understands and fully follows the human-rights issue. We do not lag
behind other countries on this." Sadly, that understanding appears highly
questionable in light of the draconian sentence just handed out to a 34-year-
old pharmaceutical-company employee. This and other recent cases would show
the hollowness of communist guarantees.
Pham Hong Son, a marketing executive who originally trained as a doctor, has
been jailed for 13 years -- and for good measure, also sentenced to three
years' house arrest after he finishes his jail term. He was indicted for
allegedly spreading anti-government propaganda, accepting funds from
overseas opposition groups and seeking to "advocate pluralism and a
multiparty system." His greatest alleged crime apparently was to have posted
on the Internet a Vietnamese translation of an essay -- called "What is
Democracy?" -- from the American State Department's Web site. Never mind the
fact that a translation of the same essay had been handed out several times
before by the American embassy at official functions.
Mr. Son joins two others recently jailed for scaring the wits out of the
regime in Hanoi. In November, a Vietnamese was jailed for four years for
questioning the Vietnam-China border pact; and following this, another was
charged, tried and jailed for 12 years (with four years of house arrest on
top of that for espionage). Yet a Foreign Ministry spokesman was still
reported to have said that the Vietnamese constitution guarantees free
speech. If so, we're curious how advocating "pluralism" fails to comport
with communist ideals and would be an indictable offence not covered by free
speech. In our reading of Marx, did we misunderstand him about empowering
the people?
Neither can we be encouraged by the judicial process that saw Mr. Son's case
so quickly sewn up. According to reports, his wife, Vu Thuy Ha, said she was
the only witness for the prosecution: "They questioned me twice -- once to
ask who I am, and a second time to get me to confirm the . . . charge. I
refused to answer because they only allowed me to say 'yes' or 'no'." That,
says Miss Ha, would violate the criminal procedure code. Not surprisingly,
Mr. Son's trial was concluded in just a day./.
Updated June 25, 2003 5:21 p.m