Human Rights Watch Letter to President Macron Re: Upcoming Visit to Vietnam and Status of France-Vietnam Partnership

Dear President Macron,

I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch in the context of your upcoming visit to Vietnam to raise grave concerns about the Vietnamese government’s human rights record.

As you know, the Vietnamese government undertook several pledges and obligations on human rights in the context of the 2020 EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and in a France-Vietnam joint statement on a new France-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership issued during Vietnamese President To Lams visit to Paris in October 2024.[1] Your government’s October joint statement with Vietnam underlined both countries’ commitments to the Charter of the United Nations and in particular “the importance of the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The Vietnamese government has sharply intensified its repression in recent years. Despite its pledges in the context of the agreements above, authorities continue to prohibit independent rights groups, labor unions, media, religious groups, and other organizations seeking to operate outside government control. Authorities have also increased the numbers of arrests and prosecutions of dissidents and critics of the government.

There are now more than 170 political prisoners in Vietnam, imprisoned for exercising rights to freedom of expression or peaceful activism for human rights and democracy, and charged under draconian laws. Human Rights Watch recently documented how the Vietnamese authorities are increasingly using a vague, overbroad, and abusive provision of the penal code (article 331) on prohibiting the “abuse of democratic freedoms,” both to silence prominent activists and to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services, corruption, or police abuse. Several people have also been arrested and prosecuted in recent years for advocacy for labor rights protections in the EVFTA.

In the appendix below, we have outlined the details of this deteriorating situation in detail and listed specific issues and political prisoners to highlight with Vietnamese officials during your visit.

We are aware that the EU raises concerns about those abuses in the annual EU-Vietnam human rights dialogues. These types of interventions, however, have had little if any impact on the Vietnamese government’s conduct nor led to any significant reforms. EU member states have also routinely raised human rights concerns in statements at the United Nations Human Rights Council, which likewise have had no appreciable impact.

It will be more effective for you and your government to publicly voice concerns about Vietnam’s worsening record during your trip and signal that there will be consequences for the bilateral relationship if Vietnam does not reverse its repressive trend. Specifically, we urge you to press the Vietnamese government to:

• Unconditionally release all persons detained for exercising rights to freedom of expression, association, religion and assembly, including activists whom To Lam, while head of Vietnam’s abusive Ministry of Public Security, personally appears to have targeted for arrest, such as Pham Doan Trang[2] and  Bui Tuan Lam[3]; persons arrested in relation to their activities related to the EVFTA, such as Pham Chi Dung and Dang Dinh Bach; and others named in the appendix below, many of whom have serious health problems.
• Take meaningful steps to implement labor reforms to allow independent labor unions to be formed—in law and in practice—and end intimidation and retaliation against workers who attempt to organize for labor rights protections outside of government-controlled mechanisms.
• Promptly ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 87 on freedom of association, and genuinely engage with the ILO to reform laws and policies as necessary to ensure the proper application of ILO Convention No. 98, which Vietnam has ratified, on the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining.
• Repeal vaguely worded “national security” provisions and other provisions in the Vietnamese penal code that have been used to prosecute individuals for peaceful dissent, including: “abusing democratic freedom” (article 331); “sabotaging the unity policy” (article 116); and propaganda against the state (article 117).
• Amend the Criminal Procedure Code to ensure the due process rights of all criminal suspects, including prompt and unhindered access to legal counsel throughout the investigation period, which exposes defendants to an increased risk of torture and other ill-treatment and undermines the principles of due process of law and right to a fair trial.

France should also open a dialogue with Vietnam about how EU member states could better contribute to international tax cooperation, as well as on the importance of ensuring that national laws support and facilitate companies’ compliance with robust labor, health and safety and environmental laws, in alignment with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Accountability framework and the Forced Labor regulation, to maintain the competitiveness of Vietnamese companies towards EU buyers and their access to the EU market.

Continuing to upgrade France’s and EU’s relations with Vietnam without addressing the Vietnamese government’s extensive and continuing abuses will essentially reward the government’s authoritarianism. It will also raise questions about the EU’s commitment to its own obligations under article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union to promote human rights and democratic values through foreign policy and trade.

We thank you in advance for your attention to our requests and assure you, Mr. President, of our highest consideration.

Sincerely,

Benedicte Jeannerod
France Director

John Sifton
Asia Advocacy Director

Appendix: Vietnam’s Entrenched Authoritarianism and Worsening Abuses
 

False Promises on the EVFTA

In 2019 and 2020, many nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, raised strong concerns with EU officials about the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and repeatedly called on the European Parliament to postpone consent to the treaty, emphasizing the opportunity of using Vietnam’s strong interests in the agreement as leverage to secure concrete human rights progress and reforms. We reiterated that such reforms had to be secured before ratification, highlighting the transactional approach of Vietnam’s leadership. We also expressed concern that Vietnamese authorities were likely to violate the EVFTA’s human rights obligations, just as they were breaching obligations under international human rights conventions to which Vietnam is party.

Your office and other European Commission directorates, however, contended that the EVFTA would motivate Vietnam to reform, and lead to more freedoms and better human rights protections in Vietnam. These hopes have been proven wrong, as shown by the government’s failure to implement reforms and intensifying crackdown on dissidents, critics of the government, and reform-minded officials within the government itself.

Repression of Labor Rights

Vietnam does not allow independent unions to represent workers, contrary to its claims otherwise.

According to the Vietnamese government, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) is a “labor confederation” of enterprise-level unions. But the VGCL is not independent: its leaders are appointed by the Vietnamese government or the Communist Party of Vietnam, and any “unions” and “federations” that exist under the VGCL are almost all led by people appointed by management at the enterprise level.

Moreover, workers in these entities do not choose leaders or representatives who can bargain to set wages on their behalf, and the leaders of enterprise-level “unions” do not have any role in choosing VGCL leaders or representatives. Insofar as the VGCL does bargain with management of companies or at the state-wide level, it does so in the interests of the government and the Communist Party of Vietnam, not on behalf of workers and not in a representative capacity.

The Vietnamese government claims that the 2021 Labor Law provides for independent unions, but this too is inaccurate. New provisions in the Labor Law provide for the creation of “worker organizations” or “worker representative organizations” at the enterprise level. In theory, these could be independent of the VGCL. But no such organizations are known to exist, nor could they, in practical terms. The government has not promulgated necessary regulations to implement the new labor law or created any legal and bureaucratic mechanisms to facilitate the creation or registration of worker organizations.

Moreover, even if a worker organization could come into existence, it would not be an “independent union” or meet international benchmarks for independent trade unions. Such organizations have limited powers under the labor law and there are no explicit provisions allowing them to affiliate or form federations independent of the VCGL. The absence of any implementing regulations to the labor law, combined with existing provisions in Vietnam’s Trade Union Law, send a clear message that Vietnam’s government has no intention of allowing independent trade unions to come into being, and instead intends to have all current and future worker representative organizations governed or controlled by the government-controlled VCGL.

The dynamic of state control of the VGCL is also demonstrated by a recent Communist Party directive, Directive 24, which orders enhanced scrutiny of labor groups, civil society, and foreign organizations, specifically in the context of Vietnam’s implementation of new trade agreements with other countries and with the International Labour Organization.

Numerous articles in state-run media also reflect the Vietnamese government’s hostility to independent labor organizations or unions, calling them “hostile forces” that use “plots and tricks” to “oppose the Party and the State… causing social disorder and hindering the lives of laborers in our country,” or arguing that the purpose of “so-called independent trade unions” is to “form a domestic oppositional political force, proceeding to carry out a ‘color revolution’ or ‘street revolution’ to overthrow the Communist Party and eliminate the political regime in Vietnam.”

Vietnamese authorities’ arrests and prosecutions of labor rights reform advocates is consistent with these attitudes. In April 2024, Vietnamese police arrested Nguyen Van Binh and Vu Minh Tien, senior officials in Vietnam’s then Labor Ministry and in VGCL who had advocated for more meaningful labor reforms and some independence of trade unions. Two labor rights activists, Mai Phan Loi and Dang Dinh Bach, were also arrested after they tried to join the EVFTA’s Domestic Advisory Group (DAG), tasked with monitoring implementation of the agreement.[4] And in 2019, while the EVFTA was still being debated in Europe, the journalist Pham Chi Dung was arrested in 2019 after writing a message to the European Parliament critical of the agreement; he has been behind bars since.

These and many other negative rights developments in Vietnam have led several human rights and labor rights groups to file complaints with the EU’s Single Entry Point, alleging that persistent serious abuses constitute a breach of the EVFTA.

This record of failures of legal reforms, arrests of labor reform advocates, and attacks on independent unions, demonstrate that Vietnam’s commitments on human rights and labor rights, including those communicated during the EVFTA negotiations, were unfounded or not made in good faith.

Political Prisoners

The Vietnamese government frequently uses vaguely worded and loosely interpreted provisions in Vietnam’s penal code and other laws to prosecute and imprison political and religious activists. Vietnam currently holds more than 170 people in prison for peacefully exercising their basic civil and political rights, and many of them suffer serious health problems.

We urge you to raise the following cases of prisoners held for exercising their basic rights. Several are suffering from severe health issues. All those arbitrarily detained should be immediately and unconditionally released.

1. Pham Doan Trang, writer and human rights advocate
2. Pham Chi Dung, independent journalist
3. Le Dinh Luong, democracy campaigner
4. Hoang Duc Binh, labor activist
5. Nguyen Van Tuc, democracy campaigner
6. Nguyen Tuong Thuy, independent journalist
7. Tran Anh Kim, democracy campaigner
8. Tran Van Bang, democracy campaigner
9. Dinh Van Hai, democracy campaigner
10. Nguyen Thai Hung, YouTuber focusing on human rights and political issues