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Organization: Vietnam Insight
Editor: Chan Tran
Address: PO Box 7826, San Jose, CA 95150, USA
Phone: (408) 226-2261
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Date:         Sun, 26 Jul 1992 23:23:12 PDT
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From:         Vietnam Insight <vinsight@NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      VI: Anmesty Reports of Political Prisoners in Vietnam

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN VIETNAM
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Summary of the June 1992 report titled "Vietnam: Arrests of Political
Prisoners, 1990-1991"

Amnesty International welcomed the release of around 100 political
prisoners in late 1991 and early 1992. Most of the prisoners released
were former military personnel associated with the pre-1975 government
of the Republic of Vietnam. However, it has continued to receive
disturbing reports of political arrests in Vietnam, including prisoners
of conscience, during 1990-1991.

Among those arrested or placed under house arrest were former
"re-education" camp detainees, Protestant pastors and religious lay
persons from tribal minorities who are members of unofficial "house
church" movements or "unregistered" Christian groups, writers and
journalists who are members and former members of the Communist Party of
Vietnam, and other critics of the government. Amnesty International
believes that most of them have been arrested for the peaceful
expression of their religious and political beliefs.

In November 1991, Minister of the Interior Bui Thien Ngo, in an article
on national security published in Tap Chi Quoc Phong Toan Dan (All
People's National Defense Journal) in Hanoi, reported that over the past
years "more than 10,000 criminals, including those who have committed
economic or political crimes and other serious violations, have turned
themselves in and confessed their wrongdoings."

Amnesty International notes with grave concern that the crime of "taking
actions to overthrow the people's government" specified in Article 73 of
the Vietnamese Criminal Code does not distinguish between armed or
violent acts which may pose a threat to national security and the
peaceful exercise of the rights of freedom of expression and
association. This is also true of other criminal offences specified in
Chapter I of the Vietnamese Criminal Code under the heading "especially
dangerous crimes against national security." This legislation defines a
range of peaceful activities as "crimes against the national security,"
and grants judicial authorities the power to convict and imprison
people, solely on the basis of real or imputed nonviolent beliefs or
activities.

Amnesty International appeals to the government to uphold the right to
freedom of expression, the right to freedom of association and the right
to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and to release
immediately all those confined solely for the nonviolent exercise of
these rights. These rights are guaranteed by international human rights
agreements particularly Articles 18, 19 and 22 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of which the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam is a state party.


--
Vietnam Insight (vinsight@netcom.com)
Chan Tran, editor
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU