At 8:00 am on March, 4^th, 2014, The People's Court of Da Nang city opened the trial to judge blogger Truong Duy Nhat for “abusing democratic rights and freedoms to infringe the interests of the State and the rights and legitimate interests of organizations and citizens” according to the provisions of Paragraph 2, Article 258 in the Criminal Laws of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

        Truong Duy Nhat used to be a student of Literature in Hue university and a former reporter of the newspaper of Da Nang’s public security and later transferred to be a reporter of Dai Doan Ket newspaper. Through website truongduynhat.vn (called "Truong Duy Nhat/A different perspective") and a number of other personal blogs, Truong Duy Nhat has published over 1000 articles and a number of articles and comments of others. Of these, 11 articles written by Truong Duy Nhat and 01 by Nguyen Duong were posted on the website such as the articles "Inside and outside the Party", "Scoring Prime Minister", "Scoring the Atomic Four", "Why only football", "Football and the Party", "The incompetence of the government", "the General Secretary and the Prime Minister should quit"... These articles was not true, just falsely propagandized and distorted the policies of the Party and the State laws, defamed leadership of the Party and the State, spread pessimistic views causing panic anxiety and undermining the people’s confidence in the leadership of the country.

        With those charges above, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison by the People's Court of Da Nang city (from the date of arrest May, 26^th, 2013). It is absolutely a propriate verdict, expressing strictness of the laws and the pardon of the State. However, before, during and after the trial, individuals and organizations, in the name of the “so-called democracy”, have tried to propagandize in an effort to free unreasonably blogger Truong Duy Nhat, distort and accuse the Vietnam gorvenment and the Communist Party of Vietnam of  arresting and trying person who’s just practised "the freedom of speech” and call for human rights monitoring organizations like Human Rights Watch, the U.S embassy in Vietnam voice against the trial. Along with that, the radio and newspapers such as RFA, VOA, BBC and the blog "democracy" like "Civil Society Forum" , "Huynh Ngoc Chenh", "Dan lam bao", "Xuan Dien Han Nom"... have published articles to propagandize and distort the case and give false information and images surrounding the trial. As typically, they said on the blog that there was about 200 to 300 people gathering in front the Court in Da Nang to call supports for Truong Duy Nhat, put pressure on the government, but, in fact, there was just only a few "democratic seeds" counting on the fingers as bloggers Me Nam, Huynh Ngoc Chenh, Pham Xuan Nguyen, Thai Ba Loi, Le Thi Phuong Anh...

        Besides, as the counsel for the defence Truong Duy Nhat, the appearance of lawyer Mr. Tran Vu Hai – who is widely known for activities of inciting the mass to participate in demonstrations and acts causing insecurities and turbulence like incidents in Van Giang - Hung Yen and Tien Lang - Hai Phong further made the trial “hotter”. Before the trial, Tran Vu Hai had posted on the blog the full text to plead for Truong Duy Nhat with 7 pages of A4-size paper to distort the truth and make irrational proposals.    

        Acting like a reporter and a well-educated person, Truong Duy Nhat should realize that acts of writing and posting articles, comments with misleading and false information to defame leaders of the Party and the State on their websites, blogs have violated the laws, and the sentence for him is reasonable. This is also a lesson for bloggers and journalists in doing business of writting and publishing their articles, do not being drawn into anti-government activities because of political innocence to violate and damage the national interests of the country and the people./.

           On March 12, Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, to the World Trade Organization with other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, spoke at the session for dialogue with the UN special Rapporteur on “Freedom of religion and belief” and “Protect and promote human rights in counter-terrorism” on the occasion of the 25th session of the Human Rights Council.

Vietnam Ambassador welcomed the efforts of the Human Rights Council and the UN Rapporteur on the spirit of cooperation, constructive dialogue and increase understanding between countries as well as the efforts of the international community to promote economic development and religious harmony in the world, contribute to maintaining and promoting human rights, including freedom of religion and belief.

Vietnam shared it comments that terrorism and religious hatred not only cause loss of life and economy but also upside down peace of the people as well as destroy the cultural, religious values​​ and good joint efforts of the international community to build a world of peace, security and prosperity. The terrorists, sponsoring organizations and enticing actions to terrorist activities should be handled by law. The Ambassador emphasized the anti-terrorism measures must conform and comply with the principles and standards of international law, including the United Nations Charter, international law on humanity and human rights, particularly the right to live, right to personal privacy and equality before the law.

At the same time, Vietnam supported efforts of the Human Rights Council and the international community on a comprehensive approach to address the issues of religious hatred and terrorism, including the root causes of poverty, unemployment, inequality, racial and religious discrimination.

Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh also reaffirmed Vietnam's commitments to promote and protect the fundamental rights and freedom of citizens, including the right to freedom of belief and religion. Speech by Ambassador also introduced the situation of religious and belief freedom in Vietnam, of which 95% of Vietnamese people follow the popular belief and religions in the world such as Buddhism, Christianity, Protestants and Muslims with the large number of different religious activities took place every year.

On this occasion, Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh announced that Vietnam is cooperating closely with the United Nations in actively prepare to ensure successfully the working visit of the special rapporteur on religion in Vietnam later this year.

                Vietnam Navy's helicopter preparing for the search of the missing Malaysian MH370 plane

The last days we suddenly worried by the news about Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board slipped off the radar screens early on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China.

Many countries, especially Vietnam, have been strongly participating in the search. The search for flight MH370 now entered its sixth day. The operation has received great support from Vietnamese military and transport forces. Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army Vo Van Tuan has directly instructed the search and rescue activities. A command office was also set up on Phu Quoc Island, which is near the plane’s last known location, to coordinate the search. At the request from Malaysia, Vietnam immediately dispatched aircraft and vessels to suspected sites at sea.

Vietnam affirmed its willingness to join search teams from other countries to have a best rescue solution. Besides, Vietnam allowed Chinese ships after completing the necessary formalities to go into the waters of Vietnam to carry out the work of searching to create valuable opportunities for finding.

Vietnam has mobilized Air Force, Navy and other elite forces working closely with other stakeholders in a large-scale and expensive search, up to 20 billion VND per day, equivalent 1 million US dollars.

Vietnam is working closely with Malaysia and widens search area looking for the missing plane.

Vietnam has also created the best conditions for journalists of major newspapers to gather information about the search. About 70 reporters from major news agencies in the region and the world have arrived in Vietnam to cover the case, helping bring the voice of Vietnamese officials to the world as soon as possible. Major news agencies such as the BBC and CNN have regularly taken updated information from Vietnam’s television channels and websites. The images of planes and vessels from Vietnam naval and maritime police forces have regularly appeared in UK newspapers. Local media has rapidly accessed information sources and become a main source for foreign newspapers,

Many countries have praised Vietnam for its leading role in the ongoing search.

In an article published in China's Global Times on March 11, Xu Liping, an expert from the Institute of Asia - Pacific and Global Strategies under the China Institute of Social Sciences, thanked Vietnam for its efforts and active role in the search. And the mobilization of all forces for the massive search reflects the country’s sincerity and determination in the mission. The mobilization of all forces for the massive search reflects the country's sincerity and determination in the mission, the expert added.

Meanwhile, the BBC said that through its efforts into the search, the Vietnamese Government has shown international responsibility for a humanitarian matter involves many countries.

Vietnamese Government has shown the world its spirit of high responsibility in a humanitarian matter which related to many countries. The image of Vietnamese Navy helicopters and vessels on international information network has reiterated Vietnam’s efforts despite the fact that there was no Vietnamese citizens on the missing plane. Vietnam has proven itself as the host of a important sea - the East Sea by allowing foreign ships to join in the search.

We have also shown solidarity of ASEAN community, we share difficulty with our friends as well as in ASEAN’s motto “one community, on destiny”.

That’s Vietnam’s tradition, we always give hand to others who are in need. We all wish the plane and passenger will come back and there will no accident like this happen in future./.

Mounting economic growth with implementation of social justice is a consistent policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam during the development of a socialist-oriented market economy. Results of the implementation of the socio-economic development strategy on the period 2001 - 2010 and three years from 2011 to 2013 has clearly demonstrated the achievements of this engagement. The reality has confirmed that this is the economic model of human development (as many international experts evaluated), a vivid demonstration of the implementation of human rights in Vietnam.

One of the hostile force’s tricks is try to distort the implementation of human rights in Vietnam in the process of selecting the model to develop the socialist-oriented market economy. However, nearly 30 years of implementing reforms, especially the implementation of the socio-economic development strategy from 2001 to 2010 and the results of three years from 2011 to 2013 in the instability of the world economy, has clearly demonstrated outstanding achievements in the implementation of human rights in Vietnam.

The shift from the centralized management mechanism and subsidy economic model to the commodity components economy with the management of the State, now known as the socialist-oriented market economy, is a fundamental turning point in the thoughts and actions of the Vietnamese Communist Party in the career of socialist construction in our country. Though selecting the socialist-oriented market economic model, the State and Party are also be aware that the socialist-oriented market economy is not a versatile remedy to solve all social problems, especially with the negative side of the socialist-oriented market economy. Thus, right from the start of the Doi Moi, the State and Party has always advocated the link between the economic growth and the implementation of social justice. That guideline has been completed gradually over period of the national congresses of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the successful implementation in practice.

In addition to the policies on promoting economic growth to be a basic condition to solve social problems and implement social justice, the Party and State have made many national programs to support poverty reduction for people, such as the 134 Program on supporting productive land, residential land and housings; the 135 Program of socio-economic development in especially difficult commnes; recently, the Program of socio-economic development in implementation of Government Resolution 30A to support rapid and sustainable poverty alleviation for the poorest 62 districts. These programs basically intend to support ethnic minorities, vulnerable groups in the development process. They has helped to push for the hunger eradication and poverty reduction. People's lives have been significantly improved with the actual income after 10 years ( 2001-2010 ) increased by 3.5 times, the poverty rate decreased by 2-3% per year. Health care is mostly focused and has achieve many results. Currently, 62% of the population has health insurance, 100 % of children under 6 years of age were examined with free health care, etc. The achievements have contributed to the human development index (HDI) of Vietnam. The United Nations has highly appreciated Vietnam as the leading country in implementing the Millennium Goals.

These important achievements in promoting the economic growth and the implementation of social justice are forceful evidence to reject unfounded slanders of the hostile forces on the implementation of human rights in Vietnam today.

 

 

 

At the latest Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the human rights situation in Vietnam, about 30 countries were interested in the issues including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of information, freedom of the internet in Vietnam. Most of them were Western countries.

Thanks to the rapid development of the mass media and the Internet, Freedom of speech and freedom of information in Vietnam has been improved in recent years .

2013 Constitution of Vietnam states that: “Citizens have freedom of speech, freedom of the press and access to information ...”

Currently, there is no censorship for press, publishing as well as Internet censorship in Vietnam.

In recent years, the exercise of freedom of speech in Vietnam has made ​​progress. The debate , interpellations about the policies of the State were took place lively and practically in the Vietnam Parliament and other official forums. The Parliament held confidence vote for the first time to the Cabinet members and top officials, demonstrating the role of Parliament is enhancing, the process of democratization in government agencies is developed.

In addition to expression in the mass media in Vietnam and overseas , over three million bloggers also expressed political opinions on social network, organizing discussion forums about policy State constitutional amendments, sending petitions, collecting signatures to support on collective petitions...

However, Vietnam law restricts freedom of speech in some cases in accordance with the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, respecting the legal rights and legitimate, reputation, honor of others in order to protect national security, public security, health or morals of society .

Specifically, Vietnam law prohibits the following acts :

1 . Propaganda for war and violence.

2 . Incitement to ethnic hatred, religious.

3 . Incitement to discrimination of race.

4. Spreading the bad customs, superstitions.

5. Incitement violence against the government.

6. Disclosure of State Secrets.

7. Giving false information, misrepresentation, slander, defamation of others .

8. Description meticulously obscene actions, horrible killings; popularization pornographic images;

9 . Arbitrarily publishing photographs, documents and a personal letter.

Issues related to Internet governance are affirmed that the Decree 72/2013/ND-CP does not restrict freedom of speech but aims at regulating activities on the Internet, ensuring consistent development of healthy Internet environmen, contributing to the advancement and protection of public interest, to deal with the risks and damage from the Internet.

Decree 72 was issued after acquiring the opinion of many organizations and individuals in Vietnam and abroad in order to create a fair business environment, transparency for enterprises, ensure the safety and security information on the Internet network in accordance with cultural traditions of the nation and human rights standards .

The prohibited acts in Decree 72 have been provided in the Information Technology Law (Article 12), the Press Law (Article 10), the Telecommunications Act enacted earlier. Decree 72 does not contain provisions limiting or banning the use of internet searching, receiving, disseminating and sharing information.

In order to surmount situations of copying, reprinting articles without permission, even to modifying the content, editing articles’ headline, Decree 72 requires respectation for copyrights of the press and information on the internet.

                                                A Vietnamese girl choosing flowers

During opening days of March, we are celebrating a special event: the International Women's Day, March 8^th - Day of women all over the world, as well as Vietnamese women's festival.

Women's Day is also the Festival of society, because inside each people, there are always images of our beloved women. Women are half the world. Moreover, they have an important contribution to create this world. We are born and grown up in the mother’s loving lullabies. They bring us ambitions, dreams in our life,. They also show us the way how to live with the nature of people. They help us overcome difficulties and mistakes.

Culture is created in values. The values that women bring to life are contributing to the core of Vietnam spiritual culture. A voice, a smile , a letter from our  faraway girlfriend, the white head of our mother... all accompany us throughout life , making us more stronger on the power the way forward.

We’re really proud of Vietnamese women. In the ancient history of the nation, the image of the national women heroes like Hai Ba Trung , Ba Trieu have become a symbol of patriotism and indomitable spirit of Vietnam. It can be affirmed that in each periods of our national history, there has been images of the woman, who was with her husband, son and with strong will, kind heart, they had built houses, villages and fields for the country, and when the enemy invaded the country they were willing to stand up. We bear in our mind the name of so many women who have joined hands to make the beauty and resilience Vietnam.

The firstly beauty of a woman is the beauty of the soul, and from that they are shining in all aspects of life. Those are the beauty in work, in education, in love, in battle and in the daily life. The more difficult they have to face, the brighter their beauty is.

Vietnamese women – they can do well in social work, house work for their husband and son ready in the fight against the enemy. In the French resistance and war against America, so many mothers had lost their husband and even their sons. They have sacrificed their young age and health to serve for the fights. There are those who fell to their death at the age of 18, 20 like girls in Dong Loc T-junction... Their blood had fallen for the independence of the country. The beauty of Vietnamese woman has been recorded in poetry and music. The beauty is stick to legendary names likes Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Vo Thi Sau, Mac Thi Buoi, Tran Thi Ly, Vo Thi Thang, Nguyen Thi Hong Gam , Miss Ut, Mother Suot...

Today, Vietnamese women inherit and promote the fine traditional values, and elevate what has to meet the requirements of the new era - the era of accelerated industrialization modernization of the country and international integration. Women have increasingly asserted their large role in society. Women account for 50.1% of the workforce in rural areas, a high proportion of the education sector, health care, the processing industry, textiles, leather shoes, trade, services. They are participating more and more in the industry that requires professional expertise, high technology. Many leaders and successful business owners are women. In the political field the status of women is enhanced constantly: female deputies in National Assembly XIII account for 24.4 %, female public servants in government agencies from district to center level account for 31%; lost of women take the important responsibility in the leading agencies of the Party and State. Particularly in the field of Training and Education, women account for 74 % of the total number of 1044035 teachers, especially in the high school level. This team is constantly rejuvenated and improved in both quantity and quality. Women account for nearly 40 % of people with Ph.D., 21.4 % of Dr., 14.08 % of professor and 37.87 % of assistant professor. Women are being gathered, organized and encouraged by joining to movement "Women active learning, creative laboring, building happy family", associated with the continued deployment of "Study and follow the moral example of Ho Chi Minh" and other campaigns like that. From there, the power, performance and position, the social role of women is increasingly high. Vietnamese women’s status and social role have been progressing and raising, that due to their efforts and importantly thanks to the practical  and effective care of the Party and State.

Vietnamese women are always the pride of Vietnam. With the current progress and development, they certainly will continue to uphold the tradition of being "heroic, indomitable, loyal, skillful" to contribute to the national work of building, protecting and developing our country, and also are reliable support for every home and family. On occasion of International Women's Day 8/3, let's send to Vietnamese women, the mother, wife, sister a friendly greeting along with beautiful flowers and best wishes.

On February 25, 2014, the U.S. Department of State published the 2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, criticized human rights issue in a number of countries around the world including Vietnam. Asian countries became targets of criticism in the discontent human rights report of the U.S. Department of State.

Critical spearhead of the report firstly to China that this country lagged behind human rights record. Myanmar was assessed as “an extremely totalitarian regime with countless human rights violations. North Korea was “one of the most inhuman regimes in the world”. Human rights situation in Iran was evaluated very badly. Many other Asian countries were also condemned in the report such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Uzbekistan, India, Sri Lanka, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt ...

However, U.S ally in Asia that Pakistan was not critisized in the report. Afghanistan was hailed as a significant improvement of human rights conditions since U.S. troops went there to oust the Taliban government . One other U.S. ally, Israel was also criticized for human rights but the achievements of Israel against the Palestinians was considered difficult to ignore.

The report went so far as to criticize the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) to lack of responsibility and its members (China, Cuba, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe) even do not protect the rights of their citizens”.

Outside of Asia, the report criticized Cuba for “violating human rights drastically”; Russia has been criticized for election fraud in Chechnya . Many other countries were also criticized for abuse of human rights.

The report seen as unfair and prejudiced has met opposition from many countries.

A spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: “The U.S. should acknowledge the human rights achievements of China and come to an end of human rights report in China”. Former Syria Deputy Foreign Minister Suleyman Hadat condemned the U.S human rights reports for “a clear intervention without reason” in the internal affairs of this country... Even human rights organizations in the United States also protested this report. The U.S. Human Rights Network cited a series of human rights violations in the United States to conclude: “the U.S. government has no moral authority to assess the human rights situation in the world " . International opinion has also criticized that Washington under the pretext of the war on terror “to seriously violated international standards of human rights”.

The war of the U.S against Iraq on the grounds of no truth about “weapons of mass destruction” is human rights violation. Nearly 20,000 people and more than 500 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and its allies were killed, causing many other adverse effects in Iraq.

In Vietnam, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said on February 27 that: “First of all it needed to assert that Vietnam has made tremendous achievements in the fields of economy, culture, society, building and perfecting the legal system, ensuring the rights for people enjoy the most basic freedoms as the right to live in independence and freedom, the right to develop, the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press. These accomplishments have been recognized and highly appreciated by the international community. Unfortunately, the human rights report of the U.S. Department of State continues having no objective observation, does not reflect the reality in Vietnam. We strongly refute that wrong comment”.

It can be said that Vietnam is one of the country which has attained a high achievement in gender equality. For that, the UN has assessed Vietnam as the highlight in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. That result is a vivid demonstration that shows the Party and the State have deeply cared for women’s interests in particular and ensured human rights in general.

The gender equality issue in Vietnam is affected by the Vietnamese long history at each different stage of history, there are different manifestations. Notably, for centuries, Vietnamese people was under the feudal domination of the Chinese, especially when Confucianism was spread into Vietnam, the role of women in society became extremely inferior. Accordingly, the gender inequality was rampant, the fundamental rights of women were not guaranteed, even deprived unreasonably.

Recognizing the importance and the responsibility to show the people and the international community, in its political program in 1930, the Vietnamese Communist Party identified that gender equality is one of ten crucial tasks of the Vietnamese Revolution. It was also noted in the first 1946 Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and was clearly affirmed in Article 63 of the Constitution (as amended in 1992) of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. So far, Vietnam has participated in several international conventions, including: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW in 1981), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC in 1990) and actively implemented the Beijing Platform for Action (in 1995) for equality, peace and development. In addition, many laws and policies have been issued, amended and supplemented to create favorable conditions for the implementation of gender equality and protect women's rights. The highlights were: the National Strategy for the Advancement of Women in Vietnam in order to improve the quality of life (both physical and mental) for women, as well as to create conditions necessary for women to enjoy their basic rights, participate completely in every aspect of political, economic, cultural and social life. Besides, the Labour Code (2002) was amended and supplemented the content related to policies for female workers, including social security, wages, labor protection and vocational trainings. In addition, Vietnam has signed agreements for legal assistance in many countries and participated international agreements and declaration on the prevention of human trafficking, and is an active member of the multilateral forums such as The process of Consulting Asia – Pacific, Bali process on the prevention of human trafficking and transnational crimes, ASEAN joint Declaration on the prevention of human trafficking... Along with the guidelines and policies in the areas of basic, our State is also interested in the particular fields, such as the promulgation of the Ordinance on the prevention of prostitution (2003), Programme of Action to prevent and combat trafficking in women and children, and also handle serious crime and take measures to help victims. The State has also enacted the Law on Gender Equality (2006), Law against Domestic Violence (2007). In particular, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (the 10th) gave Resolution No. 11-NQ/TW about the women in the period of accelerated industrialization and modernization of the country (2007); the Prime Minister approved the National Strategy on Gender Equality (2011-2020), the National Assembly often performs better monitoring of gender equality. Every year, the government has reported results of implementation of the law on gender equality in an efforts to ensure good equality between men and women, the rights to work, to elect and to express their opinions and hopes, the rights to choice of spouse for marriage or divorce,… and all are protected by law.

The results obtained in the above areas have an important contribution to improve the quality of life and quality of human resources, and the most convincing evidence that: Vietnam is a national pioneer in struggle for gender equality and human rights defenders. However, the hostile forces still find ways to deny these accomplishments, to serve their conspiracy against the Party and the State. However, these tricks can not fool anyone, because Doi Moi’s achievements in general, as well as the achievements on the field of gender equality in Vietnam in particular, are the undeniable facts that the peoples and many organizations worldwide have recognized./.