Vietnam must reform to secure human-rights Amnesty
LONDON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Amnesty International on Thursday
welcomed
last year's release of 13 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam as a small
step forward for human rights in the communist country.
But the London-based rights watchdog said there was an urgent need for
substantive legal reform and dialogue between the Vietnamese government
and international monitors if these advances were to mark a new era.
``Vietnamese law criminalises the right to freedom of expression,''
Amnesty said in a report.
Since no distinction is made between religious and political dissent and
armed oppposition to the state, peaceful government critics can face
long jail terms under stringent national security laws, it added.
The report detailed releases under 1998's two mass amnesties in Vietnam,
when almost 8,000 prisoners were freed including Doan Viet Hoat and
Nguyen Dan Que, two prominent dissidents in their mid 50s.
Hoat was detained in 1990 and jailed for 15 years in 1993 after calling
for a multi-party system and the abolition of the Communist Party in the
underground Freedom Forum publication.
Que, a doctor, was arrested in 1990 and sentenced to 20 years in prison
a year later for advocating democratic reform.
Amnesty also highlighted the cases of religious and political dissidents
still being detained.
Lack of access to the country for human rights monitors meant
constructive dialogue with Vietnamese authorities remained impossible,
it said. The organisation said it had submitted a copy of the report to
the Vietnamese government for comment, but had received no response.
``Ability to accept constructive criticism is an important test of any
government's political will to protect the rights of its citizens,'' it
said. ``We invite the Vietnamese government to open a dialogue with us
on issues of mutual concern.''
China sends 2 dissidents to labor
camp
Exiled activist says West too soft on China
December 29, 1998
Web posted at: 11:56 a.m. EDT (1556 GMT)
BEIJING
(CNN) -- Two U.S.-based Chinese dissidents who had secretly returned to China were caught
by police and sentenced without trial to three years of forced labor, China's Foreign
Ministry said Tuesday.
The sentencing was part of a recent crackdown against anti-government activists.
Leading exiled dissident Wei Jingsheng said the upsurge in arrests of dissidents and
pro-democracy supporters was the direct result of the West's soft stance toward China.
In the first official word on the whereabouts of U.S.-based dissidents Zhang Lin and
Wei Quanbao since they slipped into China seven weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry said
police had arrested them on November 12 in the southern city of Guangzhou in a barber shop
operating as a brothel.
The ministry said the two men confessed to hiring prostitutes and evading border police
by hiding inside a truck from Hong Kong the day before their arrest.
|
| Wei Jingsheng, right, accepts a key to
Taipei from Mayor Ma Ying-jeou on Tuesday |
|
For those alleged crimes, police sentenced both to three years of "labor
reeducation" -- the maximum sentence police can order without a trial.
18 imprisoned for illegal publications
According to the official People's Daily newspaper, Chinese authorities have imprisoned
18 people for up to 13 years on charges of printing or selling illegal publications in a
crackdown predominantly on politically sensitive books.
Most of the arrests took place in northern Hebei
province, after the authorities seized printing plates and 50,000 copies of a pirated
political book, the People's Daily reported on Tuesday.
China has launched a nationwide crackdown on dissent and what it considers subversion,
targeting activists, book and magazine publishers, authors, music producers, film makers
and computer programmers.
|
| Xu |
|
Exiled activist speaks out
Exiled pro-democracy activist Wei, speaking before a meeting with Taiwan President Lee
Teng-hui during a visit to the island, urged Western leaders to return to a tougher
stance.
Wei said stiff prison terms meted out by Beijing recently to outspoken democracy
advocates were the fruit of Western nations' policy of soft engagement with China.
"This is the consequence of the West's wrong policy," Wei told Reuters
Television in an interview in Taipei.
"It eased its pressure on China and allowed the Chinese communists to make an
unbridled crackdown on the democracy movement. The democracy movement has suffered a major
setback over the past two to three months. Many Western politicians are responsible for
that," he said.
One prominent dissident recently put behind bars, Xu Wenli, has raised his voice in a
letter from prison. The letter was dated Monday and made available to international news
organizations.
Xu criticized his 13-year prison sentence for trying to form an opposition party as
"political persecution."
He said he would not appeal his sentence out of contempt for the judicial system that
prosecuted him last week.
"My so-called open trial was in truth nothing but a means of political
persecution," Xu wrote in the letter. "First, I will not answer any questions.
Second, I will not defend myself. Third, I will not appeal to a higher court. This is a
silent protest against political persecution."
The Associated
Press and Reuters
contributed to this report. | 
Human Rights'News