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Dieu Cay
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Dieu Cay
2015-06-04 13:17
Thank you for giving me the honour of addressing the Subcommittee on International Human Rights about the human rights situation in Vietnam today.
On the day I left Vietnam on October 21, 2014, as the plane took off I looked back at my own country, where I had spent so many days of hardship in communist prison and where many of my friends still continued their constant search for the freedom of my country, and I knew that I still had to continue the fight for many years so that I could one day return to my free and democratic native land.
I realized from that day that what I do will no longer be for me but for my fellow prisoners. I have to help them tell the world how the rights of Vietnamese citizens, especially in prison, are violated. I have to work so that everybody in my native land will enjoy the human rights specified in so many international conventions and agreements to which Vietnam itself has been a signatory.
Over the last six months I have met with many American personalities, from the Department of State to Senator Durbin, members of the House of Representatives, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and members of the media to ask them for help to gain the freedom of my friends and to let the world know about the extent of human rights violations in Vietnam.
Recently, on World Press Freedom Day I had the honour of meeting with President Obama, and I presented him with my wishes for press freedom in Vietnam. I also urged him to ask Vietnam to release all prisoners of conscience and to abrogate the ambiguous legislation that Vietnam has used to take away the rights to freedom of the Vietnamese people.
Ladies and gentlemen, today I would like to present three issues related to the human rights situation in Vietnam: one, freedom of the press and freedom of speech; two, prisoners of conscience; and three, labour unions in Vietnam and freedom of association.
In a totalitarian dictatorship like Vietnam, all municipal communications are under the control of the Communist authority. People would not dare express their political opinions for fear of arrest without trial, such as in the case of the Nhan Van Giai Pham affair, the anti-party revisionists, and many others resulting in an ever-increasing number of victims of illegal convictions.
Specifically in the case of the Free Journalists Club of Vietnam, to which I am a witness, we only expressed our opinions in a moderate manner on the Internet, yet we were arrested and condemned to prison sentences exceeding 10 years.
The Vietnam authority is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but they never implement it. They promulgate laws with ambiguous articles, such as article 258, article 88, article 79, and implement decree 72 for the purpose of convicting the dissenters and the people who fight for human rights. This is a blatant violation of article 19 of the ICCPR.
A state dictatorship governed by interest groups for individual gains, with rampant corruption, weakens the economy and causes discontent among the people, yet when the people voice their dissatisfaction, the state uses all its various means and brutal tricks to silence them.
It is these ambiguous articles that the authority has used to arrest whoever expresses dissenting views and to protect the existence of the dictatorial regime. Only when the people can freely express their righteous views, without fear of suppression and imprisonment, can we have a society in which a life of freedom and happiness for all is guaranteed.
Vietnam has been integrating into the world. The first thing it must do is to abolish those ambiguous articles and return to the people the rights of freedom of expression and free press. Only then can Vietnam have true democracy.
Now I would like to address the second issue, which is the issue of the prisoners of conscience. Wherever there is power, there is a need for a mechanism to supervise power, but that mechanism is absent in Vietnam. In other words, Vietnam is truly a police state.
The police make arrests, manage detention centres, do investigations, assess evidence, and manage prisons. It is this absence of supervision that gives the police a free hand to make wrongful convictions, to force confessions, to use inhumane, barbaric, brutal torture in their investigations, causing death to hundreds of people. They usually say to the victims, “Your death only cost us one piece of paper.” This shows the life and death power they have over the victims, because it is also the police who do the investigation, and the conclusion is always death by suicide. Indeed, it only cost them a piece of paper.
After six years, six months, and 11 days in communist prison, I realized that the communist brutality is even more horrible than I thought. To punish the prisoners of conscience, they will stop at nothing: public slander, prison cells with a slit only 30 cm. long for ventilation, and isolation cells with iron bars and corrugated iron roofs exposed to the scorching sun. This cell is an area of only 1.8 metres by 2 metres, including the toilet. On hot days we had to cover our faces with wet towels to survive the heat.
I learned that the more we comply with their orders, the more they make life harder for us. All rights of prisoners specified in the criminal law are ignored, specifically the right to counsel and the right to appeal. When we appeal to the procurator's office, it has to be done through the prison wardens, who naturally never forward the appeal. The prisoners are completely at the mercy of the wardens.
These rights are denied simply by the issuance of circulation 37 of the Ministry of Public Security, whose contents nobody knows. With this circulation, Vietnam security openly set up prisons within prisons for the prisoners of conscience, imposing isolation with no outside contacts.
This has prompted many prisoners to protest by hunger strikes. I went on a hunger strike twice, once for 28 days in camp B34 and the other for 33 days in camp number six of the Ministry of Public Security. This is the most barbaric prison system in Vietnam.
The latest news, which I just received a few moments ago, is about a friend of mine who was imprisoned in camp number five in Thanh Hoa. She has been on a hunger strike for 31 days and her health is deteriorating very quickly.
The Vietnam authority must immediately abolish circulation 37 of the Ministry of Public Security and amend the implementation legislation in accordance with the international covenant to which Vietnam is a signatory.
On the issues of labour union and freedom of association in Vietnam, my friend Dr. Thang Nguyen has just made a very good presentation, so there is no need for me to go into more detail. All I would like to know and to say right now is that we request that members of Parliaments and labour unions all over the world voice their concern so that workers in Vietnam can form unions to protect their interests.
We request that all of you condemn and demand the Vietnamese authority to abolish ambiguous articles 258, 88 and 79, decree 72, as well as circulation 37, according to the international covenant, and to release all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam.
I want to present to you a list of the prisoners of conscience requiring urgent assistance. At the head of the list is Ms. Ta Phong Tan, the lady I mentioned just a few minutes ago who is on a hunger strike and in poor health. Also on the list is Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, Nguyen Huu Vinh, Bui Thi Minh Hang, Tran Vu Anh Binh, Vo Minh Tri, Nguyen Dang Minh Man, Ho Thi Bich Khuong, Doan Van Vuon, Doan Dinh Nam, Doan Huy Chuong, and Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung.
I thank you very much for your attention and your concern about the human rights situation in Vietnam, with my very best wishes for your health.
Thank you.
Hung Nguyen
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Hung Nguyen
2015-05-28 13:15
Good afternoon.
Mr. Chairman, members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my gratitude to you all for your concern about the human rights situation in Vietnam and for having extended an invitation to us to take part in this meeting today.
I am Pastor Nguyen Hung. I am in charge of the Mennonite church of Chuong Bo in Vietnam. It is an independent Mennonite church. I'm also a member of the Interfaith Council of Vietnam.
I would like to do my presentation in my capacity as a witness and also as a representative of the Interfaith Council of Vietnam, which consists of high-ranking priests of the five big religions in Vietnam, namely: Cao Dai, Catholicism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and also the Protestant church.
As a member of the Interfaith Council, I would like to present three main points in my presentation.
First is the general assessment on current conditions of religious freedom in Vietnam.
According to state-owned media, Vietnam appears to be a place with respect for religious freedom and religious development, a country in which many places of worship and religious institutions are built, as well as a place of small religious festivals and a place where people from abroad can come to learn about religions. The reality is that these features come with positive practice of a faith. Religious groups are only allowed these fundamental rights in exchange for silence in the face of injustices committed by the government.
The government only bestows approval and privileges to those people who follow the guidelines and the instructions of the government. On the contrary, other religious practices and religious ceremonies and instructions that are not compatible with the government are not allowed.
They are not allowed to carry out unlimited social and humanitarian activities. They are not allowed to own real estate or to change, expand, or narrow their facilities. They are not allowed to come into contact with overseas organizations, with international organizations. As well, they're not allowed to send people abroad or to invite people from abroad for religious purposes. All of these basic rights needed for religious worship are absent and not available in Vietnam.
If we want to do something, then we have to get the approval of the government, which involves waiting a long time and a lot of strict conditions with which the government tries to discourage us. All these obstacles are designed to lower the quality of the leadership of the religions, to prevent religious people from engaging in society, and also to make religious activities less effective and discourage the expansion of the influence of religions in society. That is precisely the hidden goal of the law on religious faith, which the government is prepared to promulgate very soon.
The Interfaith Council has prepared and sent a letter of protest on this bill, which was made public on May 10, 2015. Our view is that the state is plotting to apply pressure on the church.
That is precisely what the government plans to impose on the religions in Vietnam. This bill continues to apply a mechanism of application for approval with all kinds of permits required in order to control, suppress, and undermine the religious churches. The language of the bill is very imprecise and ambiguous so that it would let the people of the local authority interpret it as they like.
The sections in the bill are self-contradictory and also they go against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in article 18. It also goes against the constitution of Vietnam of 2013 under article 24. Basically those are the points we mentioned in the protest letter that we made public to the government.
In the second part of my presentation, I would like to mention a few events and facts to prove the religious suppression.
After April 30, 1975, the Government of Vietnam had confiscated properties, lands, and facilities of many religious organizations. They also created pressures and suppressed brutally the independent religious sects, especially the Cao Dai religion. They also tried to interfere and stop the religious meetings of the local Cao Dai organizations. They also created disturbances and dispersed the religious worship. They occupied the facilities of the church, for instance like in the Kho Hien Trang in Tien Giang, and Tuy An in Phu Yen.
They also brutally suppressed and stopped the meeting of the Interfaith Council on May 7, 2015.
With the Catholic Church, they continued to detain Reverend Ly and they harassed Bishop Hoang Duc Oanh in Kontum. They also pressured the Saigon Redemptorists to cease defending the oppressed and the human rights defenders.
Concerning the Hoa Hao religion, they continued detention of many dignitaries and followers, such as Chairman Le Quang Liem. They prohibited and vandalized the ceremonies. They assaulted and beat the attendees. They destroyed small Buddhist temples and they used a state-run Buddhist section to defame the cardinal virtues of the teachings of Huynh Giao.
With the Unified Buddhist Church, they intend to grab land and occupy the temple at Thu Thiem, Saigon. They also harass the priests and the nuns in temples and monasteries throughout the country. They prevent the people at the Phuoc Thanh temple from taking care of the war wounded of the former members of the South Vietnamese republic. They continue surveillance and harassment of the venerable Thich Quang Do and the venerable Thich Khong Tanh.
With the Protestant Church, they continue to repress violently Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, and the Mennonite Binh Duong group. This was between 2014 and 2015, and they also destroyed their facilities.
They hired thugs to vandalize my own home, the home of Pastor Nguyen Manh Hung. I'm in charge of the Chuong Bo church. They also threatened many pastors and prevented them to take part in the interfaith religious council. They imprisoned Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh for 11 years and Pastor Duong Kim Khai for five years.
This is the third part. These are the recommendations and suggestions we would like to make to the Canadian government.
We would like to request that the Canadian government and members of Parliament always bring up the issue of religious freedom in the discussions and the visits for assistance to Vietnam. The assistance from your country will really bring benefits to the religious groups and to all the people of Vietnam.
With your experience in a free and democratic society where all religions' worship is considered like that of any regular citizen, and in which the relationship between the state and the church is defined in a number of conventions, we ask you to please raise your concerns from the Canadian point of view about the bill regarding religions in Vietnam, because this is an attempt to impose more restrictions on religious activities in Vietnam. It also tries to suppress the voice for religious freedom, which is why the movement for human rights is rising.
Please pressure the Vietnamese government to release all political and religious prisoners and also the prisoners of conscience who have been detained in the fight for freedom and for the freedom to practise their religion. Especially, you have to ask Vietnam to respect religious freedom and the freedom of religious followers to practise their religions in prison, and also for the population of the ethnic minorities in remote areas.
Thank you for your attention. We'll be very happy to answer your questions.
Dai Nguyen Van
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Dai Nguyen Van
2015-05-14 13:13
My name is Nguyen Van Dai, a human rights lawyer from Hanoi, Vietnam.
First of all, I would like to thank the Canadian parliamentary committee on human rights for giving me the opportunity to represent the Brotherhood for Democracy and other civil society organizations in Vietnam. I will talk to you on the status of human rights in Vietnam. Then I will have a few recommendations.
The human rights situation in Vietnam in recent times has improved slightly, but the improvement was not coming from the goodwill of the government. The improvement was due to the pressure from the international community and the growth of civil society organizations in Vietnam.
ln the period from 2006 to 2012, each year Vietnamese authorities arrested, tried, and imprisoned 10 to 40 people. The reason for those arrests is that they wanted to use freedom of speech and freedom of the press to express their political views through international websites, blogs, and Facebook. Some arrests were due to partisan political organization activities. Currently Vietnam is still holding about 120 political prisoners and 60 imprisoned religious minorities in the central highlands.
ln the last two years, with the explosive growth of information technology, blogs, and social networking sites, Vietnam people, mostly young people, have access to the Internet and social networking sites. More than 30 million people in Vietnam use the Internet every day. According to Facebook, more than 20 million people in Vietnam have an account on Facebook. This makes the Vietnam government lose control over information distribution.
Human rights activists and social and community networks have been able to create waves of public opinion. Combined with the street protests, these waves have forced the government to change unfair and unjustified policy.
Before 2013, the government could arrest anyone it wanted, but international pressure and international integration do not allow it to continue to do so. To cope with the growth of democratic movements and human rights activists in Vietnam, the government has changed the method of repression. It used violence to attack those who are active. In 2013 and 2014, each year there were at least 10 cases. The activists who were attacked suffered injuries. ln addition to physical assault of activists, security threw dirty things into houses, destroying the meetings of activists.
For those activists who have to rent rooms or houses, security pressured the landlords to cancel their lease contracts. lt forced human rights activists to move house every two or three months.
I will speak of impeding freedom of movement within the country. Every time when there are marches or international delegations to Hanoi, hundreds of activists will be stopped at home. The government deploys dozens of security police, local civil defence agents, and neighbourhood women's league members to prevent them from leaving their homes. They cannot leave their homes to go to attend the events or to meet with international delegations.
Speaking of harassment, these pupils, college students participating in the movement, are summoned by security for questioning and often threatened. Security also pressures the school to threaten expulsion. Security also meets and threatens the parents of pupils and students.
The activists are regularly summoned by security or even kidnapped when they try to leave their homes.
On the right to work, most human rights activists in Vietnam do not have the opportunity to work for a living. If they lease a business venue, security threatens the landlord about renting. If they are employed, after a few months security will force the employers to fire them.
On obstructing the rights to travel abroad, in 2014 and the early months of 2015, there were nearly 100 human rights activists who had been banned from going overseas and their passports were seized. lt can be safely said that 100% of human rights activists in Vietnam will be deprived of any chance of going abroad.
My recommendations are that the human rights committee of Parliament, the Canadian government, use economic relations and political diplomacy with Vietnam to pressure the Vietnamese government to respect human rights.
The Canadian Parliament should recommend to the Canadian embassy in Hanoi to organize regular contacts, meetings, and discussions with representatives of civil society organizations in Vietnam.
The Canadian Parliament, the Canadian government, needs to establish funds to support civil society organizations in Vietnam, because when civil society organizations in Vietnam grow, they can be a new force powerful enough to improve the human rights situation in Vietnam.
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my presentation.
Bac Truyen Nguyen
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Bac Truyen Nguyen
2015-05-14 13:34
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present four main points on the human rights situation in Vietnam.
Point one, the activists, bloggers, Dan Oan petitioners are the main targets in the list of political prisoners.
Since late 2006 and early 2007, the communist authorities have agreed to respect human rights as a condition for Vietnam's admission to the WTO, but in reality, arrests of activists for democracy and human rights took place in late 2006 and increased thereafter. Up to now, about 250 activists and bloggers were arrested for fighting for basic human rights. I myself was arrested in late 2006, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and two years of house arrest for calling for democracy and campaigning for freedom of speech.
In about five years, tens of thousands of Dan Oan petitioners across Vietnam were deprived of lands, homes and properties. Then, hundreds of people were jailed. In the central highlands, in the north, in the Mekong Delta, people, such as the Jarai ethnic minority, Bahnar, Hmong, Khmer, hundreds of people were arrested, convicted and exiled far from home simply because they exercised their right to freedom of religion. Nobody could possibly obtain the statistics of persons arrested or convicted as Dan Oan petitioners or ethnic minorities because of the secrecy policy of the authorities.
My second point concerns the inhumane treatment of political prisoners.
The arrested activists, bloggers, Dan Oan petitioners, and ethnic minorities are treated inhumanely and are even subjected to corporal punishment or torture during the investigation or during the execution of the judgment.
I was arrested on November 17, 2006, and was detained in a room of approximately four metres square, without windows. Sunlight could not enter the room. The iron front cell door sealed the room completely and opened onto a small corridor built with a high wall. A light bulb was lit 24 hours a day. Even air could not enter, resulting in a lack of oxygen causing suffocation and headache. I was detained in such conditions for almost five months, without family contact.
Most political prisoners are denied fair trials. The trial, if any, is called a "pocket trial" because the verdict is decided before the trial begins. The evidence used for a conviction is staged and false. The accusations are generic and vague, such as can be found in article 88, propaganda against the state, article 79, conspiracy to overthrow the government, and article 258, abuse of democratic freedoms and undermining national unity policy, and so on.
In jail, the political prisoners were treated with discriminatory, harsh measures, much more brutal than those for common criminals.
They cannot read publications sent in by their families. They cannot exercise religious beliefs. They cannot call their families by phone. They are not allowed to have treatments, especially by a medical specialist. They will not receive a reduced jail sentence. They are harassed, provoked, beaten by other prisoners, subjected to solitary confinement in small rooms, and not allowed to go outside for small labour projects, sunshine, or physical exercise.
In addition, Vietnamese government policy also exiles political prisoners as a harsher punishment to other prisons far from home, from a few hundred to thousands of kilometres away, even though every local province or town has its own prison.
Being denied timely treatment by medical specialists means political prisoners can die shortly after release. Such a case happened to a teacher named Dinh Dang Dinh, who suffered gastric cancer after less than one year in prison. After serving two years in prison, he was released and died shortly after in 2014.
Prevention of infectious diseases is not considered important. Less than one year after their prison terms, political prisoners have died of HIV from infected inmates in prison. For example, Huynh Anh Tri died in 2014. Huynh Anh Tri was one of my fellow prisoners.
In Xuan Loc prison, from 2000 to 2012, there were around 10 political prisoners who died from life-threatening diseases. Many died from HIV by being forced to use a common razor at the barbershop at the K3 Xuan Loc prison camp in the years 2003 and 2004.
Ms. Mai Thi Dung, a Hoa Hao Buddhist follower in the southwest of Vietnam, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was released unconditionally at the end of April 2015 due to pressure from the governments and parliaments of countries like Canada, the United States, Germany, and Australia, as well as the UN Human Rights Council.
While being detained in Xuan Loc, she was diagnosed by a doctor and found to have many serious diseases, such as neurasthenia, gallstones, uterine fibroids, and heart failure. Xuan Loc prison told her to confess before receiving medical treatment. Ms. Dung disagreed and went on a hunger strike with a body weight of only 36 kilos, but the police moved her 2,000 kilometres by road from Xuan Loc prison to Thanh Xuan prison. During the trip, Mai Thi Dung fainted several times. When she got to Thanh Xuan prison, they again asked her to confess before getting medical treatment. Ms. Dung declined again.
Vietnam has participated in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment since late 2013.
Point three, political prisoners are used as hostages of the government in foreign policy and foreign businesses, for example, [Inaudible—Editor].
Communist authorities use political prisoners as hostages to negotiate in trade issues, in diplomacy such as with the TPP, and to remove offensive arms embargo with the U.S.
Point four is about beating, abuse, and prevention of freedom of movement of citizens.
In 2014 and early 2015, there were nearly 40 cases of activists, bloggers, and Dan Oan petitioners assaulted, with many people hospitalized for treatment of wounds and injuries, such as Mrs. Tran Thi Nga.
I myself was attacked five times in 2014. In a typical case, on February 9, 2014, hundreds of policemen stormed the house, arrested me, and hit me right in the house of my wife. Senator Thanh Hai Ngo has sent a letter to the Vietnamese ambassador to Canada to protest.
On February 24, 2014, my wife and I were on our way to the Embassy of Australia to present the human rights situation in Vietnam. We were assaulted by secret service agents in Hanoi while only 100 metres away from the embassy. The political counsellor of the embassy had to take us to the hospital.
On December 14, 2014, after receiving an invitation from Mr. Raymond Richhart, director of East Asian and Pacific affairs at the U.S. Department of State, secret service agents in Saigon prevented us from going to the meeting and then assaulted both of us at the inn where we were staying.
Currently, in the days when Vietnam authorities feel that they have to be sensitive, security forces surround the homes of activists and bloggers and do not let them out of the houses. They are very successful in this measure, as an activist could not resist dozens of policemen, secret service agents, civil defence forces, and even thugs.
Typically, Thich Quang Do, Thich Thien Minh, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, and I, although we are not under any house arrest sentence, are monitored regularly and continuously.
Here are our recommendations: One, the Hanoi government must respect human rights. Two, it must release all political prisoners, and while waiting for the release, the prisoners have to be treated humanely. Three, Vietnam must terminate all attacks and monitoring of activists and bloggers.
Thank you for your attention.
Manh Hung Pham
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Manh Hung Pham
2015-05-12 13:04
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
Today is May 12, 2015. I am here at the invitation of the human rights committee of the Parliament of Canada. lt is an honour for me personally as well as for my friends who have been or are fighting for human rights and freedom in Vietnam.
Ladies and gentlemen, before going into the details of human rights issues in Vietnam, I would like to speak briefly about myself.
Because I participated along with many friends in the peaceful demonstrations in 2006 to protest against the Chinese authorities who had opened fire and killed many Vietnamese fishermen in the Paracel and Spratly Islands of Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist Party authorities closed my computer business shop and prevented me from getting another job.
Later, I wrote the book entitled “The Truth Must be Known”, published on the Internet and printed as a hard copy book, about the historical truth in Vietnam, so I have been suppressed and hunted by the authorities.
Even when I escaped to Thailand, the Vietnamese Communist Party accused me of many false crimes that I did not commit in order to silence the truth. Lucky for me, with the help of the Government of Canada, Senator Thanh Hai Ngo, the UNHCR, and Amnesty International, I am here to tell the truth about the Vietnamese Communist Party authorities. Thank you, Canada, and thanks to all the friends who helped me overcome misfortune.
Not as lucky as me, one of my best friends who participated in the peaceful demonstrations calling for the protection of our fishermen, blogger Pham Thanh Nghien, who tried to speak out for freedom and democracy for Vietnam, received a jail sentence. After her prison term ended in September 2012, she was placed under house arrest, which is another type of jail, for three consecutive years, and she has met so many difficulties in life.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a long list of crimes by the VCP authorities in the past that I cannot detail today due to the limited time allowed in this hearing. Here, I would like to limit it to the actions of the VCP authorities that violated human rights in the 2014 to 2015 period.
ln its report on the world human rights situation in 2015, which was published on January 29, 2015, the U.S. human rights organization Human Rights Watch said that the human rights situation in Vietnam in 2014 was still alarming. Although the number of activists and bloggers who were arrested was smaller than in 2013, the state security forces have intensified their harassment and intimidation toward government critics in many forms.
ln reality, Vietnam has refused to implement key recommendations such as the release of political prisoners and those detained without formal charges or trial, and legal reform to stop the politically motivated sentences aimed at those who demand basic human rights peacefully. The communist regime of Vietnam still often uses the rules of “undermining national unity policy” and “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State” to suppress dissenting political views.
Independent writers, bloggers, and human rights activists are frequently subjected to police intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrest, and detention for several days without legal aid or family visits. Widespread police brutality, including causing death while in custody, has almost reached a rampant level. ln 2014, even the state media, which are tightly controlled, often reported on the status of police violence. Many detainees said that they were beaten to force a confession even though they did not commit the violations they were accused of. Among the beaten victims were also children. ln many cases, those who died in police custody only because of a small error. The police explain the cause of the deaths in custody as suicide, which is often unbelievable and a signal of a systematic cover-up.
ln 2014 Vietnam still maintained the characteristics of a single-party regime, with trial verdicts politically motivated, with factory workers not entitled to full rights, with rampant police brutality, and with unfair or unreasonable land confiscation. The Vietnamese government tightly controlled freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Bloggers, human rights defenders, activists for the rights of workers and landowners whose property has been confiscated, as well as advocates for religious freedom and democracy continue to be harassed, intimidated, assaulted, detained without trial, and imprisoned.
Police still hinder travel to prevent people attending events related to human rights and continue monitoring the state-unapproved sections of Cao Dai, Hoa Hao Buddhists, Protestant, and Mennonite churches, including places of worship in the home. ln the first nine months of 2014, at least 20 people were sentenced for participating in religious groups not approved by authorities. There is no freedom of religion; only religions that can be controlled by the state are allowed.
The independent trade union was outlawed and workers' rights seriously violated. Recently, nearly 100,000 workers demonstrated in March and April in 2015 to protest against the communist authorities for refusing to pay fair and timely worker's compensation. At the same time, the state union is the tool of the VCP to repress workers.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a blogger and a communist refugee, I would like to provide greater detail on bloggers in Vietnam. ln Vietnam, we who write blogs to tell the truth in society against injustice or demand freedom and democracy will be jailed by the VCP. Previously many journalists or songwriters who wrote just one song praising patriotism were imprisoned, such as Ms. Ta Phong Tan and musicians such as Viet Khang, Tran Vu Anh Binh, etc., yet abuses to bloggers, freelance journalists, musicians of patriotic ideals still continued at a rampant pace in 2014.
Let me give some specific examples. Correspondent Anna Huyen Trang of the Saigon Redemptorists media was stopped from leaving the Tan Son Nhat airport at 21:30 on April 13, 2014. At 23:30, the security men arrived and beat her up, seized her by the neck and dragged her out in the presence of a very large crowd of people and friends of the reporter.
Because of the blogs exposing the corruption of public officials, the People's Court of Hanoi sentenced last March 19, writer-blogger Pham Viet Dao to 15 months in prison for abusing democratic freedoms under article 258 of the Penal Code. Pham Viet Dao, himself, worked at the department of cinematography of the Ministry of Culture and then as inspector of the department until 2007.
Mr. Dao was a member of the state's writers association and also has translated many works into Romanian. He had studied abroad and was a college graduate in literature. On Monday, June 9, 2014, the appeal court, in a secret session to review the sentence, approved the sentence, the original verdict of a 15-month prison sentence for writer Pham Viet Dao. What is even more deplorable is that the court did not inform his wife and children, so the wife and children were not present and he did not have a lawyer. He had to defend himself.
In February 2014, activists Bui Thi Minh Hang, Nguyen Thi Thuy Quynh, and Nguyen Van Minh were arrested on their way to Nguyen Bac Truyen, an activist, with the fabricated charge of obstructing traffic. These three people were sentenced in August 2014 on charges of disturbing public order, with a sentence of two to three years in prison.
The crackdown on bloggers continues. Notably, in the month of May 2014, the authorities detained prominent blogger Nguyen Huu Vinh, commonly known under the name of Anh Ba Sam, and collaborator Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, on a charge of violating article 258. ln total, at least 10 people have been convicted under article 258 in 2014.
Another very common and alarming situation is that human rights activists are severely beaten. For example, police-supported thugs attacked and severely wounded the former political prisoner and blogger Truong Minh Duc in the month of November 2014, resulting in his having to be hospitalized for several weeks.
At 10:30 a.m., on November 29, 2014, the investigation security agencies of Ho Chi Minh City police raided and arrested blogger Hong Le Tho and charged him under article 258. Mr. Tho was born in 1949 and was a permanent resident at 32 Cuu Long street in ward 15 of district 10 of Ho Chi Minh City. He was quite popular and was hosting a blog, Nguoi Lot Gach. He actually wrote about the social situation and problems of corruption of officials.
Writer Nguyen Quang Lap of the reputable Que Choa blog had his home searched on the morning of June 12, 2014, and was arrested at 2 p.m. the same day in Saigon. His computer was confiscated because he constantly expanded his reports on the shortcomings of society with a view that opposes the state. He was arrested under article 258, that is, “abusing democratic freedoms”, but later he was prosecuted under article 88, which is the offence of propaganda against the state.
Blogger Nguyen Ngoc Gia was arrested on December 27, 2014. His real name is Nguyen Dinh Ngoc. He was born in 1966. He has written regularly for six years on the issues of prisoners of conscience, wrongly accused petitioners, and critics of the policies of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Upon his arrest, the state police website mentioned his arrest but did not specify what offence he had been charged with nor where he was.
Most recently, a young blogger, Nguyen Viet Dung, with his friends, marched peacefully in Hanoi to protest the indiscriminate cutting down of trees. They were investigated by the police agency of the Hoan Kiem district and prosecuted under article 245 of the criminal code for the offence of causing public disorder.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are many other incidents of repression by the VCP government on human rights and freedom of expression in Vietnam, but we can not say them all because time does not allow it. What I would like to raise here is a small part of the human rights violations of the communist authorities, and also to bring awareness to the Canadian Parliament and the human rights and democratic committees of the world, to see the urgency of the problem of human rights violations in Vietnam.
A country such as Vietnam that has joined the Human Rights Council has to respect human rights. Therefore, as a condition to increased suppression of freedom and democracy in Vietnam, I wish the Parliament of Canada and other countries, and also the United Nations, to carry out effective sanctions against the VCP authorities. Do not let the government of Vietnam join the TPP because Vietnam does not meet the human rights requirements. You also must apply pressure on the VCP government to respect freedom of speech, the press, and democracy. They must release all prisoners of conscience, abolish article 4 of the constitution, and conduct free elections.
If Vietnam continues to disrespect human rights, the Canadian government should reconsider the reduction of aid to the communist regime.
As I understand it, the human rights set out in all international declarations are the natural rights of anyone. We come here to propose to the world human rights organizations, as well as to the Canadian Parliament, that human rights in Vietnam cannot be disregarded.
We also expect the Government of Canada, and particularly the human rights committee of the Parliament of Canada, to have a delegation of independent people to monitor human rights situations in Vietnam and to identify the problem of human rights violations in Vietnam. The people of Vietnam want to have human rights and freedom in our country.
Finally, we will continue to monitor the issue of human rights violations by the communist authorities and will inform the Human Rights Council and the Parliament of Canada when there are conditions to protect the legitimate rights of the people of Vietnam.
Thank you very much for your attention.
View Wayne Marston Profile
NDP (ON)
One of the things that we are seeing because of the rise of the Internet and blogging and web-based types of communication is that more traditional print media and television are being cracked down on sooner in different jurisdictions. They're playing catch-up on the Internet is my point. Is that the case in Vietnam? Because in other countries they seem to lag somewhat behind, particularly North Korea, for instance.
Have they gotten to the point where they're really interdicting directly into the Internet now? Television and all of that have been much easier to control than the Internet. I guess a better question is: are they becoming more sophisticated?
Manh Hung Pham
View Manh Hung Pham Profile
Manh Hung Pham
2015-05-12 13:43
Actually, the control of the Internet has been practised by Vietnam for a long time. With the police security they have a special branch to manage and monitor the activities on the Internet. They also installed a firewall that prevents the people from getting the news from outside. They also had a government decree signed by the Prime Minister himself forbidding the people to use the Internet for spreading ideas of democracy and freedom.
View Judy A. Sgro Profile
Lib. (ON)
Are there certain specific topics that the Government of Vietnam would want to restrict, as far as free comments and the exchange of ideas are concerned? Are there specific topics that the Government of Vietnam would not want you to talk about that you can talk about?
Manh Hung Pham
View Manh Hung Pham Profile
Manh Hung Pham
2015-05-12 13:53
Yes, there are many things, but in my personal experience I can mention one particular issue, which concerns some facts related to Ho Chi Minh himself. He was the leader of Vietnam but he committed many crimes, and the most serious involved the land reforms in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. I myself knew about that and I have written about it, but that issue is taboo in Vietnam.
View Tyrone Benskin Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you.
In regard to the bloggers, according to your testimony there is a clamp down. Where are the bloggers getting their feed from? How are they accessing the Internet? I'm assuming the Internet is readily available in Vietnam, or is it being brought in, or fed in, some underground way that allows bloggers to access it?
Manh Hung Pham
View Manh Hung Pham Profile
Manh Hung Pham
2015-05-12 14:02
Precisely. On the point you mentioned, the Internet—as I mentioned earlier in the presentation—is severely controlled by the government. The bloggers and other people have difficulty getting the true information to the vast majority of the people. The Prime Minister of Vietnam has signed three decrees limiting the use of the Internet and subjecting the spread of information from the Internet to very severe control.
On these issues, I would like to appeal to Canada, to other countries, and to other organizations that advocate for the protection of human rights to provide more assistance to the people who would like to have a freer society and a freer means of expression.
Ahmed Shaheed
View Ahmed Shaheed Profile
Ahmed Shaheed
2015-05-07 13:08
Thank you, Chair.
Distinguished honourable members, it's a great pleasure to be here at the committee to speak on Iran.
Six weeks ago I made much discussion about the state of human rights in Iran. The UN Human Rights Council voted to renew my mandate for another year. The same week, Iran pledged at the UN to implement 130 of the recommendations that were made at the second review of Iran under the universal periodic review of the country at the Human Rights Council, which was done in October of the previous year. As it did in its previous review four years ago, Iran agreed that it would accept these recommendations because a lot of them were actually rooted in what they were doing already, or were on their way to realizing them, but of course, the four-year review showed that that was not the case. I'm very much hoping that there is greater awareness of the need to encourage Iran to comply with its own commitments at the universal periodic review.
A number of the recommendations at the universal periodic review are calling on the Government of Iran to consider strengthening protections for civil and political rights and to cease practices that violated those rights. They also entreat Iran to accede to several conventions that abolish the use of the death penalty, protect against torture, address the rights of migrant workers, and advance gender equality, all of which are areas of serious concern in the country.
Recommendations also pertain to improvements in protections for vulnerable groups, including religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities, and encourage the establishment of a national human rights institute mechanism which meets the Paris principle's criteria and enjoin cooperation with the United Nations human rights mechanisms, including the country mandate.
Unfortunately, developments in the biannual reports that I and the UN Secretary-General have presented to the council and the General Assembly appear to be lacking in application in the country, and in many areas we have spoken about, the situation appear to be deteriorating quite seriously.
Aspects of laws, policies, and practices previously identified by Iranians and the United Nations, by its mechanisms, and that are presented in all eight reports that I have presented since my initial setup in 2011 continue to create a situation in which rights are undermined in the country and capacity to improve conditions is limited.
A number of draft laws and policies containing provisions that appear to further negate national and international guarantees are either currently under consideration or have been adopted in the past 12 months. These include provisions that appear to expand the government's influence over the media, civil society, political organizations and the legal community, and they seemingly extend policing powers to civilians with an interest in enforcing Islamic moral codes.
The resulting adverse effects can be observed in reports that have continued to emanate from the country this past year about the ongoing arrests of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and ethnic and religious minorities, accompanied by open letters and confidential communications about torture and violations of fair trial standards. Closure of media outlets and severe limitations on the Internet and social media tools also continue. Policies that further limit economic opportunities for women and that segregate them in the workplace are currently under consideration and/or are being implemented by the government.
One of the most serious concerns I have expressed in my report is the alarmingly high rate of executions in the country, which has continued to surge in recent times. Iran is the highest executor, as it were, on a per capita basis. I wrote in my last report to the UN that at least 754 individuals were executed in the 12 months preceding my report in March. Today I am very concerned about another serious surge in the past few months and past few weeks in the country, including over a period of six days, eighty executions in the country. A number of these are also carried out in public. It is a matter of serious concern and a violation of international law in the country.
A large number of these executions are for drug offences. About 30% are for homicide-based offences. Seventy per cent are drug offences not involving a serious crime that would allow in international law the expectation of the death penalty. In the past four months of this year, up to 400 individuals have been put to death in Iran under these laws.
One of the main reasons the death penalty is so widely used in Iran is the use of the current anti-narcotics drugs law. I note that the authorities mentioned last year in press conferences that one way of reducing these incidents would be to amend the narcotics law, but I haven't seen this happen in practice. A further concern is that the death penalty is applied for a range of non-homicide offences, including sexual offences, corruption. Also in the past 12 months, it has included a growing number of juvenile offenders, 17 over the past 12 months that I have been observing this. There are a number of serious human rights concerns that pertain to the right to life in Iran.
Another area of concern, as I mentioned in the introduction, is that efforts appear to be under way to further diminish the space allotted for the use of counsel in the country, including the arrest of a number of lawyers. Laws are in the pipeline to end the independence of the bar council and create a government-sponsored, government-controlled bar association. That will further diminish the ability for Iranians to have a lawyer of their choice to defend their rights. There is a concern, and I draw attention of the world community to the importance of focusing on this subject.
On media freedom the existing laws themselves are quite restrictive. There are 17 impermissible types of content the press law currently prohibits. There are further developments in this area, including the use of the computer crimes law and cybercrimes law, dating from 2009 and 2010 respectively, which limit and violate the ability of Iranians to access information and use as expression in the country.
Iran claims that journalists aren't put into detention for carrying out their professional work, but that is because Iran uses very broad and vague national security laws to prosecute people who they regard as threats to security but who are essentially carrying out the work of journalists and human rights defenders.
President Rouhani campaigned on the promise of giving more space for the media and journalists. There were, of course, some symbolic gestures made early on in his administration, but we've seen again closures of newspapers and people being prosecuted for activities that would clearly be regarded as normal activities for journalists, particularly in international law.
I am very seriously concerned about gender equality and the plight of women in the country. Iran is right to boast that women in Iran have a high level of education, but as I said in my last presentation here, laws have now come in which will limit women's access to universities, both a quota on the number that can go and also single-gendered causes that will further limit access to universities. Added to this has been a bill called the family excellence plan, which is designed to increase the country's population to a very high level in a very short time. This will further undermine women's ability to access employment. Under these laws there are a number of disincentives for women to be hired for jobs. The plan will require employers to give precedence to married men with families, followed by married men. Then, lower down in the pecking order are women. This puts further restriction on access to employment for women.
There's also a bill which was submitted last October regarding a plan to protect the hijab and modesty. This will further enforce restrictions on women in the workplace, including limiting the hours of work for women from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless they are in certain kinds of work, such as nursing or the medical profession. By and large, this will further limit the ability of women to secure more work.
The bill also attempts to regulate workplace dress codes, mandating that employees in the public and private sectors who do not meet the clothing standard be penalized by a reduction in their pay of up to a third of their salary for dress that doesn't meet the requirements in this bill.
I have repeatedly spoken about the plight of religious minorities in the country, the fact that the constitution itself creates a hierarchy of communities and religion, and that some communities, the Baha'i in particular, are left out of protections under the constitution. Beyond that, Sunni Muslims report that their requests to have a mosque constructed in Tehran have been denied since 1979. The government hasn't contested this claim. They say that they are welcome to pray in any mosque in Tehran, which of course is not the same as having a Sunni Islam mosque which they want to construct.
There is also persecution of other religious communities, including Christians, especially those who convert to Christianity from Islam. Persian language service hours are restricted. Persian language bibles are also restricted. This imposes further restrictions on these communities to freely exercise their religious freedom. Iran has signed on to the ICCPR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, without any reservation at all, and signed article 18 of that covenant, which requires them to grant freedom of worship and manifestation of worship.
The Baha'i, of course, face the brunt of this policy of discrimination on religious grounds. As of December last year, over 100 Baha'i remained in detention, including the top Baha'i leadership. There's been a growing incidence of incitement against the Baha'i and hate speech against the Baha'i, which is again a matter of serious concern.
I reported in my last report to the UN that there were about 70 Christians in detention. These are converts who were detained over the past 12 months. The authorities tend to target house churches in particular in terms of searches to find people from Muslim backgrounds.
I want to conclude by saying that the overall picture I gained of Iran's human rights situation is one of very serious concern, of alarm. Life certainly remains very dire for the people of the country. I also want to mention to you that my efforts to engage the Government of Iran have been only partly successful. I haven't yet been able to visit the country, nor have they allowed me to go into the country, nor have they said I am welcome in the country. That being said, they haven't diminished my power to report, my scope to report on the country, using a variety of means, including technical electronic means, and also a well-organized Baha'i Iranian civil society within the diaspora community, who are a valued source of information.
I have been able to interview about 600 Iranians since I began my work, over a third of whom are actually in the country. Despite not having physical access to the country, I have been able to get information from the country. My information is now also officially sourced. Iran does put a lot of their own activities online. Their parliamentary debates are reported online. These and their reports on findings all give me a substantial amount of official information on which to base my reports.
I wish to conclude by thanking you for your interest in the work I do, and also by stating that this sort of interest is very valuable to the task of promoting human rights in Iran. I thank you very much.
View Irwin Cotler Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to commend both our witnesses for their exemplary and excellent testimony.
Since I have an extra minute and a half, I'll put two questions, one for each of you.
The first question is for Maziar Bahari.
You shared with us some of your initiatives in terms of journalism is not a crime and education is not a crime, and the last, as you mentioned, dogs are not a crime. You mentioned that if you had more time, you might elaborate on some of this. I'd like to give you more time on any of those issues.
Dr. Shaheed, as we've said, we've been having Iran Accountability Week while the nuclear negotiations have overshadowed, if not sanitized, the human rights violations. We wanted to sound the alarm on these human rights violations. How can we try to help to make sure this alarm is being heard?
We'll start with you, Maziar.
Maziar Bahari
View Maziar Bahari Profile
Maziar Bahari
2015-05-07 13:48
Thank you very much for your question.
I think, as Dr. Shaheed said, the Iranian regime is trying to limit the space available to the Iranian people, especially young Iranians, as much as possible, to deny them physical space by persecution, incarceration, torture, and a crackdown on different newspapers and publications, but they're also quite active in cyberspace.
We have to realize the Iranian regime is ultimately an analogue regime operating in the digital world. It's a regime that is very similar to the Soviet Union's regime, which is very good at interfering with shortwave radios, shutting down newspapers, and jailing people, but when it comes to social media, to Internet digital technology, the people of Iran are always one step ahead of them.
In our initiatives, which are mostly online initiatives, we are trying to provide that cyberspace to Iranian activists and civil society. As Dr. Shaheed correctly noted, Iranian civil society is physically restricted, but there is a very vibrant and very lively dialogue going on in cyberspace and that has an inevitable effect on the physical civil society discourse as well.
One of the initiatives that we started about two years ago was education is not a crime, which is a campaign for the rights of the Baha'i religious minority to study and teach in universities. As you know, Baha'is cannot teach or study in a university. I made a documentary film called To Light a Candle. Then we made that documentary available online in Persian for anyone who wanted to download it. From what we know, and of course we cannot have any official statistics, different groups of people download that film and watch it together.
Also, we had another international campaign last year on the last Friday of February in almost 400 cities around the world from New Zealand to Hawaii. They watched the film on the same night. The campaign is still going on. In the second phase of the campaign we want to create murals and graffiti all around the world, again with the help of citizens, not only Baha'is or Iranians, but other people, to raise awareness about this issue.
With journalism is not a crime, the website is available for Iranian journalists to be in touch with each other. As I mentioned in my testimony, many people around the world do not know the names and faces of these Iranian journalists. They're just statistics: 45, 56, 65. They don't mean anything, so we are trying to document every person who's been in prison in Iran. We started in 2009 and right now we have a wall of shame. The website is going to be revamped, and we're going to have different events around the world with different festivals.
We also provide psychological and legal counselling to journalists. When people are arrested, they do not know their legal rights. When their belongings are confiscated, they do not know whether it is legal or not. In the interrogation room the interrogator can mention different articles of the constitution and they do not know that. We are providing legal counselling, both for the journalists and for the families of journalists to refer to, but lawyers are also available to give counselling.
There are many other “is not a crime” topics. As you know, they arrested some young people who were dancing to the song Happy. Maybe young people know the Happy song by Pharrell Williams, so we have made a website for happiness is not a crime.
The last one is “being a dog is not a crime”, which in a few days has gained 5,600 followers on Facebook, because the inhumane treatment by the Iranian government goes beyond people. Stray dogs are killed on the streets of different cities across Iran. We think, and I think the majority of young Iranians think, that life has to be respected. That's why they have reacted positively to our campaign.
Mark Lagon
View Mark Lagon Profile
Mark Lagon
2015-05-05 13:16
Mr. Chairman, honourable Vice-Chair, committee members, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today about human rights in Iran.
Let me start by first commending the Government of Canada, which year after year has been a leader in the UN General Assembly in denouncing the systematic abuses that the Iranian regime commits against its own citizens. Freedom House applauds that effort, and we pledge to work with the Canadian government, as ever, on that.
We're at a different juncture from that we experienced two years ago. International engagement on Iran's nuclear program has given hope to Iranians that they might emerge from decades-long isolation imposed on them by their own government.
Dialogue and diplomacy should always be welcomed, but they aren't ends in themselves. The talks with Iran have unfortunately coincided with deprioritizing and delinking human rights from the global agenda, when they should instead advance the concerns of the Iranian people and ensure that the world share concerning the regime's repression of its citizens.
Two years ago, in a tense environment, Iranians were deciding whether to vote in another deeply flawed election in their own country. In a courageous move, many returned to the polls in an attempt to shed an increasingly repressive eight years under the Ahmadinejad administration and to help avert the spectre of conflict between their country and the West. Some Iranian pragmatist described the choice as one of “the best of the worst” among eight candidates approved by senior clerics.
Hassan Rouhani, the self-proclaimed moderate aligned with leading reformists and supporters of human rights, was elected promising to remove restrictions on speech, advance women's rights, and release dozens of political prisoners. Eighteen months later, Rouhani's campaign promises haven't materialized. Despite the president's rhetoric and some superficial steps, he hasn't delivered on his vows of reform, and the administration is focused almost entirely on the nuclear negotiations.
The country's hardliners have deepened repression. The human rights situation has deteriorated further, whether with respect to gender equality, increasing imprisonment and execution of political opponents, as my colleague here has noted, or crackdowns on freedom of expression and religion.
Iranians continue to demand gender equality but have instead seen further deterioration. Vicious acid attacks against women have gone unpunished, and pending legislation restricts the hours during which women are allowed to work and creates a hierarchy for public sector hiring that would marginalize women, particularly those who aren't married. Other bills would empower employers and members of the religious militia to enforce the government's conservative dress code for women, curb the use of modern contraceptives, outlaw voluntary sterilization, and dismantle state-funded family planning programs.
Since 2013, authorities have banned women from 77 fields of study, effectively reversing hard-earned educational achievements. Another law, passed over the fervent objection of Iran's human rights community, effectively legalizes forced marriage by allowing men to marry girls as young as nine, provided that they are adopted daughters or step-daughters.
Iranian women are banned from watching public sporting events and have campaigned for years against this discriminatory policy. In a sign that international pressure works, warnings by international sporting authorities that would refuse Iran hosting privileges have led officials to signal a possible change. Pressure like that works.
In this context, in an especially ill-informed move on April 10, UN members elected Iran to the board of UN Women, a public embarrassment to the body's efforts to advance women's empowerment.
A second and increasingly blatant violation of human rights is the staggeringly high execution rate. Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out, and that's not per capita, but just as an absolute matter. It leads the world in juvenile executions. Let's look at a comparison. As my colleague noted here, Iran reached its highest level in 12 years last year, with 753 individuals put to death, 53 of whom were publicly executed and 14 of whom were juveniles. Think about this in comparison. Saudi Arabia, which is not attractive in its own record on executions, executed 90 in the last year. The execution rate is even higher—it seems to be 20% higher—in the current calendar year.
Iran holds at least 1,150 political prisoners, with likely far more, given many Iranian families' fear of government reprisals if they come forward. Some of these political prisoners are held in solitary confinement in facilities outside the purview of Iran's formal prison authority. The 2009 presidential candidates and leaders of the green movement remain under house arrest without charge for a fourth year in a row. Just this morning, prominent human rights defender Narges Mohammadi was arrested for alleged national security crimes as punishment for her peaceful activism in support of abolishing the death penalty.
Iran's media and online environment are among the most repressive in the world. This is a focus of Freedom House work. In 2014, seven newspapers and magazines were shut down, and blogs and news websites were subject to state censorship and filtering. At least 44 Iranian journalists were imprisoned. Of course, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian was among them. He's been in prison for nine months under espionage charges.
Iran's conservative Press Supervisory Board recently banned a popular women's magazine that had received a new licence from the Rouhani government after years of being shuttered under the previous government. What was the violation? It was publishing views on the cohabitation of unmarried adults and access to public sporting events by women. How dare they?
Among 65 nations that are studied in Freedom House's Freedom on the Net report, Iran is ranked at the very bottom. Authorities restrict online access to information through control of Internet infrastructure, extensive website filtering, rampant surveillance, and systematic arrests. Millions of websites, including Facebook and Twitter, remain blocked for Iranian citizens.
Last fall, Iran's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of 30-year old blogger Soheil Arabi for a Facebook post deemed insulting to religious sanctities. Other online offenders were sentenced to between seven and twenty years for blogging, for a technology website, for contributing to a Sufi website, and for a Facebook post deemed blasphemous to the regime.
Religious freedom is also under serious and continued threat. Bahá'ís, Christian converts, Sunnis, and Sufis continue to be targeted and dozens put in prison.
Academic freedom is limited, especially for Bahá'ís and women, but President Rouhani has taken some positive steps to ease repression on university campuses. In 2014, about a dozen student associations were allowed to renew their work after being forcibly shut down under the previous administration, while several new groups have been recently granted permits to operate. However, real reform is unlikely, as the Minister for Science, Research, and Technology, who had lifted restrictions, was impeached by the parliament.
Independent labour unions continue to be banned, and those who participate in protests are fired or summoned to court. At least 230 people were arrested in peaceful labour protests over the last year, and nearly 1,000 were fired in February 2015 for participating in labour protests. Five labour leaders were arrested on the eve of International Workers' Day.
Unfortunately, it appears that these crackdowns will continue. The parliament has introduced new legislation that would further restrict Iranians' rights to expression and association and would enable regime conservatives to control the country's civic and political space ahead of Assembly of Experts and parliamentary elections next year. These measures would bring political parties, journalists, and NGOs firmly under the control of commissions and councils dominated by the hardline authorities and would outlaw any activity that the regime considers harmful to its interests
Indeed elections, which are used in Iran to legitimate theocratic rule, rarely change the country's political reality. They rarely do because unelected institutions—the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, and increasingly the judiciary and security services—effectively have a veto over decisions of elected institutions.
While Khamenei may wish to be viewed as an overarching supreme guide, he is in reality a micro-manager over an expanding web of committees and councils and various organs and branches of the government. Khamenei's appointees control, oversee, and influence socio-cultural, foreign, and economic policy and ensure that policy making is in line with the leader's views and that no centre of power gains more influence than the leader.
Similarly, the country's electoral system is designed to ensure that candidate selection and the entire electoral process are carried out under the authority of the Supreme Leader and not the Ministry of Interior. All candidates for high public office are heavily vetted by the Guardian Council on the basis of subjective criteria and non-transparent procedures. In practice, this means that public officials and political hopefuls are accountable primarily to the Supreme Leader and only secondarily to the electorate.
Iranians have repeatedly attempted to achieve reform through the ballot box and through peaceful protests, but two decades of experience have proven that it will be far more difficult and costly, if not impossible, to achieve it without international support. At this critical juncture, the world must not turn its back on Iran's people's aspirations for democratic reform. Governments engaging with Iran should make clear to Iranian authorities that attention to human rights won't take a back seat to the pursuit of strategic and security co-operation.
Leading human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh said recently, in April, that with regard to the nuclear negotiations, “To think that reaching an international consensus [on nuclear talks] will by itself lead to an opening in the domestic scene...is a mistake”.
Freedom House looks forward to supporting a Canadian-sponsored resolution again in the UN General Assembly. That General Assembly action should urge the Secretary-General to take additional steps to strengthen his office's engagement with Iran. In particular, Freedom House recommends that the Secretary-General appoint a special adviser on Iran, similar to the one Kofi Annan appointed on Burma since 1995 to provide political guidance to Burmese authorities. This would provide access to the country by the UN special rapporteur on Iran and for other special procedures of the UN and would push for full co-operation by the Iranian government with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Further recommendations are as follows.
We hope that Canada will work in conjunction with the United States and Sweden at the UN Human Rights Council next March to build a stronger resolution than what already exists, that passed in 2011 on the human rights situation in Iran.
The mandate of the special rapporteur needs to be given more heft. The rapporteur's access to Iran should be a priority of international diplomacy, and countries with significant populations of Iranian refugees should allow access to their territories by the rapporteur.
As a final recommendation, I want to emphasize that Iranian officials responsible for human rights abuses should be held accountable with targeted sanctions. Even if comprehensive sanctions are lifted in the context of diplomacy on nuclear capabilities, those targeted sanctions would place effective pressure and stigma on those responsible for violating the basic dignity of women and men in Iran. We hope that Canada will join the United States and the EU in applying asset freezes and visa bans on Iranian officials responsible for abuses.
To close, the human rights situation in Iran is abysmal. Canada has been a leader in calling attention to that point. Your annual accountability week at the subcommittee is part of that leadership effort. Human rights respecting nations of both the global north and the global south need to show their solidarity with ordinary Iranians subject to repression by the government. A focus on nuclear talks and understandings doesn't justify sweeping acute human rights abuses under the rug.
Thank you very much.
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