Vietnam: Macron Should Raise Rights during Visit
Hanoi’s Repression Deepens Despite EU, French Agreements Pledging Reform
HRW | 2025.05.22
(Paris, May 22, 2025) – Vietnam’s
recent agreements with the European
Union and France committing
to human rights reforms have not resulted in improved respect for rights in the
country, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to French President Emmanuel
Macron. He is scheduled to visit Hanoi on May 25-27, 2025.
In October 2024 in Paris, President Macron and Vietnam’s President To Lam signed
a France-Vietnam Comprehensive
Strategic Partnership and a joint statement that underlined both
countries’ commitments to the United Nations Charter, including, notably, “the
importance of the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms.” The statement referenced the 2021 EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and
the 2016 EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which say that
respect for human rights is an “essential element” of EU-Vietnam relations.
“The Vietnamese government’s broad and intense crackdown on freedom of speech
and assembly is the opposite of what it pledged to France and the EU,” said Bénédicte
Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities
have jailed an increasing number of democracy advocates and dissidents and are
resisting reforms needed to comply with their human rights obligations.”
Vietnam has more
than 170 political prisoners who have been charged and convicted
under draconian laws that criminalize free expression and peaceful activism for
human rights and democracy. The Vietnamese government has largely failed to
implement legal reforms it pledged to undertake in the free trade and
partnership agreements. The authorities harshly repress independent rights
groups, labor unions, media, religious groups, and other organizations seeking
to operate outside of government control.
While in Hanoi, President Macron should publicly voice concerns about the
Vietnamese government’s worsening rights record and signal that its failures to
adopt meaningful reforms will harm the bilateral relationship, including with
respect to trade. Macron should also press President To Lam about specific
political prisoners, including Pham
Doan Trang, Bui
Tuan Lam, Pham
Chi Dung, Dang
Dinh Bach, Le
Dinh Luong, Dinh
Van Hai, and Nguyen
Thai Hung.
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam