Full Recommendations

Full Recommendations by the Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam

Excerpted from "Vietnam: Torture and Abuse of Political and Religious Prisoners," Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam, 2014.

To the Vietnamese Government:

End the arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment of people who peacefully exercise their rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, religion, and political asylum.
Immediately and unconditionally release all persons arbitrarily detained or imprisoned for peaceful expression of their political and religious views.
Ensure that all detained suspects and prisoners are treated in accordance with international human rights standards, including the ICCPR, to which Vietnam is a party. Detainees should have prompt access to lawyers of their choice, be promptly brought before a court, be tried in trials that meet international fair trial standards, and not be subject to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Carry out prompt and thorough investigations into the use of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and other human rights abuses and criminal acts in Vietnam’s prisons and detention centers. Follow up with appropriate legal action (including criminal prosecution) of identified perpetrators of abuses.
Provide adequate compensation and medical care to detainees and former detainees for harm to their physical and mental health suffered while in detention or prison.

Enact Safeguards Against Torture

Specifically, to prevent torture and other abuses of people held in any form of detention, the government should ensure that the following safeguards are carried out:

End the routine practice of holding prisoners and detainees for prolonged periods in incommunicado detention and solitary confinement.

Ensure the right of detainees to have family members or a third party informed of their whereabouts immediately following their arrest. Permit detainees to make contact with their families promptly after arrest and enforce mandatory, prompt notification by police of relatives of detainees.

Require that all arrested persons are brought before a magistrate or judge within 24 hours to ascertain the legal basis for the arrest and whether pre-trial detention is genuinely necessary, maintaining the person in custody thereafter only under order and supervision of the court.

Ensure the right of all detainees to immediate and continuing legal assistance after arrest, including the right to have a lawyer present during interrogation.

Ensure that detainees undergo a routine medical examination upon arrival at a detention facility and before and after interrogation sessions.

Restrict the length of interrogation sessions and provide adequate periods for rest and nourishment, and provide medical examinations before and after interrogation.

Maintain detailed records of all relevant facts concerning interrogation, including the length and times of sessions, the names of interrogators and guards, and the results of medical examinations.

Provide adequate remedies for detainees to bring complaints of illegal detention or ill-treatment before the court without delay.

Provide unhindered access to all prisons and detention facilities by independent bodies, UN monitors, and the International Committee of the Red Cross so that they can conduct regular and unannounced monitoring visits. Guarantee full cooperation with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other UN mechanisms in relation to any investigations or inquiries they undertake into conditions and practices in prisons and detention facilities.

Prohibit the use of statements and “confessions” extracted by the use of torture in all trials and legal proceedings.

Provide adequate compensation and medical treatment to detainees and former detainees for harm to their physical and mental health suffered while in detention.

Legal and Judicial Reform

Bring the Penal Code and other laws into compliance with international standards, vigorously supporting the rule of law and ensuring due process in the courtroom.

Repeal articles in the penal code relative to “national security” offenses, including articles 79, 80, 87, 88, 89, 91, 245, and 258, which criminalize the exercise of civil and political rights on the grounds that they violate or threaten national security, public order, and/or national unity.

Implement International Prison Standards and Prohibitions Against Torture

Promptly ratify and adhere to the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

Establish an independent domestic prison inspection mechanism that meets the requirements set out in the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.

Fully apply international standards on the treatment of prisoners and conditions of detention, in particular by enacting into legislation and adhering to the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

End Impunity for Torture and Prosecute Perpetrators of Torture

Publicly and unreservedly condemn any use of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees and ensure that those who commit such acts are prosecuted. Make clear to all law enforcement officials that these practices are unlawful, that they will not be tolerated, and that those who use them will be subject to criminal sanctions. Also make clear that an order from a superior may not be invoked to justify torture or ill-treatment, and make inadmissible in legal proceedings evidence that is gathered through the use of torture or ill-treatment.

Promptly respond to reports of torture and deaths in custody by conducting prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations and holding legally accountable all those responsible.

Establish an impartial mechanism allowing prisoners to submit complaints without the knowledge of prison guards directly responsible for them.

Regarding Transparency and Monitoring:

Publish a central registry of the names and locations of all persons held in pretrial detention, as well as a list of all those convicted and sentenced, and the relevant charges or reasons for their detention.

Allow UN and domestic and international human rights monitors to make unannounced visits to prisons and detention centers, and allow monitors to conduct private interviews with prisoners and detainees. Permit unannounced return visits to protect against retaliation against prisoners and detainees for speaking to human rights organizations.

Regarding Prison Conditions and Health Care:

Reduce overcrowding.

Lower exploitative prices for food and provisions at prison canteens and increase food and water rations so that prisoners do not need to pay for food and water.

Provide routine medical check-ups to prisoners. For prisoners who are ill, provide timely access to medical treatment and allow family members to deliver medication.

Instruct prison authorities to notify prisoners’ families promptly [within 24 hours] in the event of a prisoner’s serious illness, injury, death, or transfer to a different detention facility, and conduct independent investigations regarding the death of any prisoner.

Regarding the Use of Forced Labor in Prisons and Detention Centers:

Carry out prompt, independent, and thorough investigations into the labor conditions in prisons, detention centers, and re-education camps, which in many cases amount to forced labor in violation of Vietnamese and international law.

Abolish forced labor in prisons. Reduce the hours of labor and allow prisoners to rest at least one day a week, and pay overtime in accordance with international labor standards.

Publish a list of all forms of work in which prisoners and detainees are involved, which products are processed using detainee and prison labor, and the companies whose products are processed using detainee and prison labor.

Ensure that the same health and safety standards apply to prison and re-education camp labor as to other types of labor.

Promptly ratify and effectively implement ILO Convention No. 105 (Abolition of Forced Labor), which prohibits forced or compulsory labor of prisoners convicted of political offenses or because of racial, social, national, or religious discrimination.

Abide by ILO Convention No. 29, which Vietnam ratified in 2007, which prohibits the use of forced labor by detainees who have not been convicted in a court of law.

Regarding Prisoners’ Rights to Visits, Outside Contact, and Freedom of Religion:

Facilitate placement of prisoners in the nearest facility to their homes and their families, and allow weekly or at least bi-monthly visits by family members (as opposed to current practice which limits prisoners to one 30-minute family visit a month). For persons already incarcerated, transfer them to prisons near their homes.

Improve prisoner access to the outside world by providing books, radios, and newspapers as well as pens and paper.

Allow prisoners to practice their religion in prison and to receive and keep copies of religious scriptures.

To the United Nations:

Urge the government of Vietnam to adopt and implement recommendations made by member states during Vietnam’s Universal Periodic Review in 2009 and 2014, specifically by:

Promptly ratifying the Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol;

Repealing or amending national security laws used to criminalize peaceful dissent;

Allowing groups and individuals to promote human rights, express their opinions, and publicly dissent;

Expediting local registration of religious organizations and equitable resolution of religious property disputes;

Issuing invitations to visit Vietnam to UN special procedures, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, the Special Rapporteur on Forced Disappearances, and the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and countries assessing the claims of asylum seekers from Vietnam should acknowledge the fact that those who have been active in political or religious activities—whether or not they were “high profile” in the sense of being nationally or internationally known—face the serious risk of being arrested, detained, and tortured if they return to Vietnam. In compiling country information regarding torture in custody, consideration should be given not only to widespread acts of torture perpetrated by prison officials, but also to the harsh and degrading conditions of detention in Vietnam, including placement in solitary confinement and incommunicado detention, which may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) should engage the Vietnamese government to end forced labor in its prisons by political and religious prisoners, and in re-education camps by detainees who have not been convicted by a court of law. The ILO should investigate the use of forced labor in Vietnam by people who have been arbitrarily detained, tortured, and subject to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment

To Vietnam's Development Partners:

Call forcefully, in public and in private, for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam. Include the names of Montagnard, Hmong, Khmer Krom, and other ethnic minority prisoners in lists of prisoners of concern.

Condition non-humanitarian aid and preferential trade relations upon improvements in the Vietnamese government’s human rights practices—particularly its arbitrary detention, imprisonment, mistreatment, and torture of peaceful political and religious dissidents. Monitor and evaluate Vietnam’s progress on human rights based on clear benchmarks, such as a specific timetable for the release of all political and religious prisoners, an end to torture and other ill-treatment, and ratification and implementation of the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol.

Review all funding, programming, and activities directed to assisting Vietnam’s prisons and detention centers to ensure no funding is supporting policies or programs that violate international human rights law, including prohibitions on arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Urge the government of Vietnam to adopt and implement recommendations made by member states during Vietnam’s Universal Periodic Review in 2009 and 2014, specifically by:

Promptly ratifying the Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol;
Repealing or amending national security laws used to criminalize peaceful dissent;
Allowing groups and individuals to promote human rights, express their opinions, and publicly dissent;
Expediting local registration of religious organizations and equitable resolution of religious property disputes;
Issuing invitations to visit Vietnam to UN special procedures, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, the Special Rapporteur on Forced Disappearances, and the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.

For countries negotiating or engaged in preferential trade programs with Vietnam, initiate an ongoing review of Vietnam’s eligibility, in light of its violations of human rights and prohibitions against torture and forced labor.

Include projects addressing prison reform and eradication of torture in Vietnam in development assistance to Vietnam.

Speak out publicly when the government of Vietnam fails to comply with international human rights standards regarding arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture of peaceful activists and the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, association, and religious belief.

In Vietnam, regularly visit political and religious detainees and prisoners, other dissidents and activists who are not in detention, the families of detained and imprisoned activists, and former political and religious prisoners including those who have been placed under probationary house arrest.

Urge Vietnam to establish an independent and impartial judiciary and to allow international observers and independent monitors to monitor trials and persons held in prison or detention. Provide technical assistance—both bilateral and through international financial institutions—for legal reforms that are not limited to commercial matters but that instead address the creation of an independent judiciary and reforms of criminal, press, and national security laws to comply with international human rights standards. Call on the government to introduce legislation that guarantees, both on its face and in its application, the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, assembly, association, and religious belief, and to repeal all laws authorizing administrative detention.

Press the government of Vietnam to accept the repeated requests of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to make a visit to Vietnam, and to extend invitations to the UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Forced Disappearances, Religious Intolerance, and Extra-Judicial Executions to visit Vietnam. Urge the government to end its censorship and control over the domestic media, including electronic communications, recognizing that a free press is essential in promoting civil and political rights.

To the European Union:

In the context of negotiations for a free trade agreement between Vietnam and the European Union, the EU should raise with the government of Vietnam the need to end the practice of torture of detainees and prisoners; to end forced labor in prisons, re-education camps, and drug detention centers; and to sign, ratify, and implement the Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol.

To the United States:

Earmark funds from the State Department’s Human Rights Defenders’ Fund for use by lawyers and defenders inside Vietnam as well as abroad to assist in the legal defense of dissidents and prisoners and support for their families.

Include the names of Montagnard, Hmong, Khmer Krom, and other ethnic minority prisoners in US State Department lists of prisoners of concern. In determining whether Vietnam should be designated a Country of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act, include as a benchmark the release of all persons imprisoned as a result of their religious beliefs or practices, and/or their involvement in peaceful protests on religious matters, including government confiscation or destruction of religiously-significant sites such as churches, shrines, pagodas, or cemeteries .

Follow the recommendations of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern for its violations of religious freedom.

Implement the long-delayed project to help the Vietnamese government set up a web portal posting all published decisions by the Supreme People’s Court, and take steps to ensure that the portal will also include other important information such as first instance decisions by provincial People’s Courts, a central registry of the names of all persons who have been arrested, detained, and imprisoned, the charges against them, and their current whereabouts.

Initiate an ongoing review of Vietnam’s eligibility for preferential trade programs with the United States, including those that would be conferred in connection with the Trans Pacific Partnership, in light of the Vietnamese government’s violation of human rights and international labor standards.

The U.S. trade representative should consider Vietnam’s eligibility for Generalized System of Preferences “developing country” status in light of the practice of forced labor in Vietnam’s prisons, re-education camps, and drug detention centers, where goods are being produced that may be exported to the United States.

In light of reports that prisoners and detainees in drug detention centers, and re-education camps in Vietnam are forced to work in cashew production facilities, the U.S. Department of Labor should add cashews from Vietnam to its list of goods from around the world that are produced by forced labor.

To ASEAN’s Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR):

Urge Vietnam to take all necessary measures to effectively promote and protect the fundamental rights of its people, in particular the prohibition against torture.

Pursuant to article 4.6 of the AICHR Terms of Reference, publicly call for: i) release of all political and religious prisoners in Vietnam, ii) an investigation into the allegations of torture and other serious human rights abuses in Vietnam’s prisons and detention centers, iii) holding those responsible for such violations to account, iv) reasonable compensation for detainees and former detainees for harm to their physical and mental health suffered while in detention.

Pursuant to article 4.10 of the AICHR Terms of Reference, request information from Vietnam regarding allegations of torture and other abuses committed against religious and political detainees and prisoners by law enforcement officials in Vietnam, including arbitrary detention, incommunicado and solitary detention, forced labor, and other forms of cruel, degrading, or inhuman treatment or punishment.

Pursuant to article 4.12 of the AICHR Terms of Reference, prepare a study on torture and mistreatment of political and religious prisoners and detainees in Association of Southeastern Nations member states.