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Fifty years after the brutal crackdown that lead the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans to escape from Tibet to India, the self-immolation of a young Tibetan monk from Kirti Monastery in Sichuan Province on February 27th 2009 marked the beginning of a new form of protest against the severe repression imposed by the People’s Republic of China on the people of Tibet. Between March 16th 2011 and April 20th 2012, the self-immolation of 34 more people, most of whom died, has revealed the degree of tension that prevails in the region.

The report, prepared by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in partnership with the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), presents a selection of six testimonies from Tibetan asylum seekers in Europe. The testimonies are based on thirty interviews carried out by FIDH throughout 2011 in Belgium, France and Switzerland – the three European countries hosting the largest number of Tibetans.

FIDH says that these self-immolations overwhelmingly suggest that China’s policy for dealing with the Tibet question has failed. Last month, the Dalai Lama blamed Beijing‘s “totalitarian” and “unrealistic” policies for the wave of self-immolations among Tibetans.

The report aims to contribute to documenting human rights violations in Tibet in a context where independent observers, foreign researchers, human rights activists and journalists are not allowed to operate in the country.

FIDH urges the European Union and its Member States, as well as all States engaged in human rights dialogues with the China —  including Australia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — to immediately and systematically include issues pertaining to human rights in Tibet in talks with Chinese authorities, including at the highest levels, and with Chinese heads of State. They also encourage China to return to the negotiating table and engage in a meaningful dialogue with the envoys of the Dalai Lama.

Mr. Vo Van Ai and Mrs. Mai Huong Ngo testify before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on May 15th 2012. Photo courtesy Viet Tan.

International human rights organizations have urgently called on the United States government to press for the release of political prisoners arbitrarily detained in Vietnam, and the Assistant U.S. Secretary of State agrees that the human rights situation is getting worse.

Mr. Vo Van Ai, President of Paris-based Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam and the Vietnam Committee for Human Rights  was speaking before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at the U.S. Congress about continuing abuse of human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam. Other speakers on the panel included Mr. Michael Posner, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights, Democracy and Labor; Dr. Robert George, Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; and Mrs. Mai Huong Ngo, wife of pro-democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan who was recently arrested in Vietnam.

Mr. Ai described the terrible situation of religious and political prisoners and presented Congress with a list of 177 prisoners detained in Vietnam for the expression of their political opinions and religious beliefs. The numbers are staggering: “In a series of political trials since the beginning of last year alone, the government has sentenced at least 45 peaceful activists to a total of 231 years in prison and 103 years probationary detention,” he testified.

One such prisoner is Nguyen Quoc Quan, who was arrested on April 17th when he arrived to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City. He is accused of organizing ”terrorist” activities and currently held under investigation. Fleeing Vietnam in 1981, he made a life for himself in California and became a naturalized citizen. He is a mathematician who is also in the leadership of the pro-democracy organization Viet Tan.

His wife pleaded with the Commission to help: “I come here to appeal for your assistance in securing my husband’s release from arbitrary detention in Vietnam,” she said through tears. She explained that on April 17th 2012, her husband called her upon landing at the airport in Saigon and promised to call again after checking in at the hotel. “I waited. He never called back,” she testified.

Democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan visits US Congressman Mike Honda on June 5th 2008 after his release from prison in Vietnam. Photo under Wikimedia public domain, credit Scoutsquoc.

She said that her husband has always advocated peaceful change and that the Vietnamese government ran a smear campaign after his arrest, in which he was referred to as a “terrorist” and accused of carrying materials on “terrorism training” and allegedly planning to incite acts of subversion. “By detaining my husband for his peaceful activities, Hanoi is not only severely violating his rights but it is also posing a potential threat to anyone supporting the philosophy and approach of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi,” she emphasized.

Mr. Posner said that the deteriorating rights situation in Vietnam was of ”great concern” to the United States and that respect for human rights “continues to deteriorate”.

Stressing that “human rights are meaningless if human rights defenders are not free. Democracy cannot develop if democratic voices are stifled”, Mr Ai. urged the U.S. to make the release of political and religious prisoners in Vietnam an urgent priority.

He also pointed out the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality: “Vietnam ratified the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1982, exactly thirty years ago, and its Constitution guarantees the respect of basic rights.” Yet, many are arbitrarily detained, deprived basic freedoms and jailed without due process in the legal system.

Mr. Ai also called on the U.S. to press Vietnam to revise vaguely-worded “national security” laws which are used to suppress peaceful dissent and re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations.

Among his other recommendations for improving the situation in Vietnam were advocating for the U.S. to adopt the 2012 Vietnam Human Rights Act which links U.S.-Vietnam trade relations with respect for human rights; and not support Vietnam’s stand for membership of the U.N. Human Rights Council for 2014-2016 which is scheduled for debate at the U.N .General Assembly in New York in September 2012.

Somaly Mam campaigns against Sex Trafficking in an undated photo. Photo coutresy Somaly Mam Foundation.

The fourth annual Oslo Freedom Forum opened Monday under the title Out of Darkness, Into Light. The conference hopes to bring the most daunting humanitarian issues of our time out of the shadows of obscurity and to the forefront of global awareness.

Slavery in the Shadows was the topic of one of the afternoon sessions Tuesday, which shed a spotlight on global slavery and human trafficking, featuring testimony from former slaves and the world’s leading activists including trafficking survivor Somaly Mam and Emmy award winning actress  Julia Ormond.

Somaly Mam has dedicated her life to eradicating sex trafficking and empowering its victims. As a child in Cambodia, she was sold into slavery and endured a decade of torture and rape in a brothel with other young women. Mam escaped, and in 1996 established a Cambodian NGO to help other victims. Her memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, was published in 2005. In November 2008, the Roland Berger Foundation presented the first Roland Berger Human Dignity Award to Mam, which is endowed with one million euros ($1.4 US).

Born to a tribal minority family in Cambodia, Mam grew up in extreme poverty under the regime of the Khmer Rouge. A man posing as her grandfather sold her into sexual slavery when she was 12 years old. Mam endured daily torture and rape in a Phnom Penh brothel. After witnessing the murder of another girl—her best friend—in the brothel, Mam managed to escape with the help of a French aid worker in 1993.

Determined to help other victims of human trafficking, Mam returned to Cambodia. She began by distributing aid to enslaved girls in brothels, and in 1996, she returned to Cambodia to found AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire, or Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances), a Cambodian NGO that works with police to shut down illegal brothels and rehabilitates and houses trafficking victims. The organization has helped more than 4,000 women and children—some as young as five years old—escape sexual slavery in Southeast Asia.

In 2007, Mam co-founded the Somaly Mam Foundation, a U.S.-based organization that supports anti-trafficking groups and assists women and children who were forced into sexual slavery. In addition to its extensive work in Southeast Asia, the foundation expanded its focus in recent years to include advocacy and awareness campaigns throughout the United States.

A tireless advocate, Ms. Mam has frequently said “I don’t want to go without leaving a trace.” In a 2007 interview with Radio Free Asia’s Khmer service, she said “The majority of Khmers are good in society, but some people are not. This weakens Khmer tradition. There are many tourists who come to Cambodia for sex. As for local Khmers, we need to work hard to explain to the women. I hope one day they will have dignity like people in other countries. I do not want to see women who are victims of trafficking. I do not want to see their tears. I would like to see men and women live in dignity.”

You can watch her tell her amazing story here:

Today, on World Press Freedom Day, Radio Free Asia (RFA) President Libby Liu responded to Freedom House’s 2012 Freedom of the Press survey that classified all six of RFA’s broadcast countries as “Not Free” with North Korea as the worst-rated country on the list.

“Sadly, on World Press Freedom Day, there is little to celebrate in the countries into which Radio Free Asia broadcasts,” Liu said. “For our listeners, as Freedom House’s survey finds, free speech, free expression, and free press are far from being guaranteed rights.

“Audiences turn to Radio Free Asia not only as a source of trusted news, but as a way to get closer to the truth and to each other, as well as having their voices heard.”

Freedom House’s survey found that despite the overall conditions for press freedoms improving elsewhere in Asia, RFA target countries’ media environments remain stuck in a pattern of heavy restrictions and censorship. China was cited by the report for having the “most sophisticated system of media repression” and for stepping up “its drive to control both old and new sources of news and information through arrest and censorship.”

Chut Wuthy speaking to RFA in an undated photo. RFA photo.

Amnesty International today demanded the immediate investigation into the killing of a prominent Cambodian environmental activist, after the activist and a military police officer were shot dead on Thursday in Cambodia’s south-western Koh Kong province.

Chut Wutty was an outspoken critic of illegal logging and director of the Natural Resource Protection Group (NRPG), a Cambodian NGO that campaigns against the destruction of the country’s forests. He had received threats because of his activities.

Chut Wuthy, in his 40′s, was taking pictures of the scene of the deforestation when a group of military policemen tried to confiscate the memory card from his camera, leading to the confrontation.

“This shocking incident undoubtedly rings alarm bells for all activists who have worked with Wutty,” said Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s researcher on Cambodia. “There must be accountability in this case, with an immediate and proper investigation into what happened.”

Other military personnel were apparently present during the shootings, but the details of the incident remain cloudy.

Two women journalists from the Cambodia Daily newspaper — Cambodian Phorn Bopha and Olesia Plokhii, a Canadian national — were with Wutty when he was shot. Both were initially detained, but have since been released.

“The Cambodian authorities must guarantee the safety of the two journalists caught up in this tragedy,” said Abbott. “As the only individuals who may know what happened, they could be at risk.”

Mee Yon's one-year-old son died of starvation in North Korea. Desparate and hungry, she risked her life to cross the Tumen river into China. When Mee Yon made the crossing, she thought the man she met when she got there was going to help her find a regular job. Instead she was horrified to learn she had been sold into marriage against her will. RFA photo.

Radio Free Asia won two awards at the 16^th annual Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards sponsored by the Foreign Correspondents Club, Amnesty International, and the Hong Kong Journalists Association. RFA’s video documentary series on human trafficking in Asia won in the contest’s online content category and its Cantonese language story on the humiliation of a Chinese rights advocate garnered a merit award in the radio broadcast category.

Richard Tsoi, Chair of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said: “It is Amnesty International Hong Kong’s ongoing commitment to co-organize the Human Rights Press Awards as a tribute to the journalists bring us the stories of people who are facing human rights abuses from different dimensions. Amnesty International will certainly continue its mission to recognize and support those who keep revealing and sharing the human rights stories and concerns.”

RFA’s online human trafficking series, representing the research and work of videographers spanning a year, documents the advent of child soldier recruitment in Burma, labor abuses in China’s black factories, traffickers targeting refugee camps in Thailand, and North Korean mothers being forcibly wed in China, among other instances of trafficking. Drawing from in-country interviews with victims, NGO representatives, and traffickers themselves, the videos tell the first-person stories of trafficking that affects millions in Asia. Together, the individual videos seek to go beyond the content’s shock value to explore the human subjects and complex factors that underpin trafficking in Asia, namely, population displacement, poverty, ethnic discrimination, cultural pressures, war, and government corruption, among other issues.

Anna Healy Fenton, president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong, said: “These awards honor high quality journalism that puts the spotlight on threats to the rights guaranteed to everyone under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Over the years, the entries have included nearly every country in the region. The threats to press freedom and free expression remain, unfortunately, real and widespread. ”

RFA Cantonese’s reporter Grace Leung was honored at the event for her radio story on Hebei rights activist Xu Yishun who was jailed for one and a half years in a re-education center for charges related to his plan to visit the wife of then-jailed Shandong blind activist Chen Guangcheng. Xu incurred mistreatment during his imprisonment and public humiliation upon his release in September 2011 when he was discharged without adequate clothing and his relatives were not allowed to pick him up at the prison gates

“These hard-won awards reflect the commitment to the eye-opening journalism RFA does on a daily basis,” said Libby Liu, Radio Free Asia’s president. “Our reporting brings our audience closer to the truth, no matter how difficult the subject matter or media environment in which RFA language services operate.”

You can watch the awards ceremony, held April 21 at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong here:

The Venerable Luon Sovath in 2010. Photo courtesy WITNESS.

The Venerable Luon Sovath of Cambodia was nominated for the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) today. Former Swiss President and newly-appointed Chair of the Martin Ennals Foundation, Micheline Calmy-Rey, announced the nominees at a press conference in Geneva.

The MEA is the main award of the international human rights movement. In March 2009, Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk from Siem Reap, Cambodia witnessed his family and fellow villagers being forcibly evicted from their homes. Forced evictions remove families from their homes, often with no compensation. Despite threats of violence, arrest and disrobing, the venerable Sovath, a non-violent Buddhist monk, uses videos, poems and songs to defend the right to housing, but his advocacy touches powerful economic interests. The threats against the venerable Sovath are very real.

Sometimes called “the Multimedia Monk,” he has worked in support of communities facing forced evictions throughout Cambodia. Forced evictions are among the most widespread human rights abuses in the country. They remove families from their homes and lands with little or no notice, and often without compensation or alternative housing plans. In 2009, Venerable Sovath’s own village lost farmland in a dispute, leading to a stand-off in which police shot at the unarmed villagers, injuring his brother and nephew. He has said that “To be a human rights defender, you must have a broad heart for humanity and humankind, regardless of the personal cost to yourself.”

According to local human rights groups, an estimated 400,000 Cambodians have been affected by forced evictions or land grabs since 2003 in the wake of ostensible development projects, land disputes and illegal land confiscation.

Venerable Sovath was nominated by Civil Rights Defenders along with WITNESS and Freedom House. I asked Brittis Edman of Civil Rights Defenders why they nominated him. “He’s a rather unusual case,” she said, because he “uses innovative technology to inspire and provide support to budding grassroots mobilisation in the country, in particular relating to land issues.” She added that in a short space of time, he has gathered quite a bit of a following.

Venerable Sovath is recognized for his innovative tactics – including the use of video, songs and art – to provide persistent, non-violent leadership for communities facing forced eviction. Because of his dedicated work, he is threatened with violence, arrest and defrocking. His peaceful approach as a human rights defender is crucial in mobilizing grassroots communities to demand their rights.

The Venerable Luon Sovath in an an undated photo. Photo courtesy LICADHO.

“On behalf of Cambodia, I am happy to be nominated for this award,” said Venerable Sovath. “I am also happy to see that Cambodia does have the support of the international community, who can truly help us achieve more rights and freedom, especially for poor communities that are having their homes forcibly taken by the government.”

Venerable Sovath has been previously recognized by the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and in 2011, he received a Hellman/Hammett Award from Human Rights Watch.

You can watch a Radio Free Asia interview from April 2011 with the Venerable Sovath, where he talks about using video to document forced evictions in Cambodia:

Created in 1993, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders is granted annually to someone who has demonstrated an exceptional record of combating human rights violations by courageous and innovative means. The winner of the award is judged through a unique collaboration among ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations: Amnesty International; Diakonie Germany; Front Line Defenders; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; HURIDOCS; International Commission of Jurists; International Federation of Human Rights; International Service for Human Rights; World Organization Against Torture.

The two other nominees are:

• Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian human rights lawyer, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence on charges of ‘spreading propaganda against the State’, amongst other charges. She is the former lawyer and member of the organization of the now-exiled Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
• The Bahrain Center for Human Rights, which provides information to international NGOs and the diplomatic community in Bahrain and advocates locally and internationally in support of demands for democratic change, despite harassment by the government, who warn of legal action against the Center’s members if they continue their activities.

The winner will be announced on October 2nd, 2012 during the annual ceremony at Victoria Hall in Geneva.

Ethnic Shan from Burma work on a construction site in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo Courtesy Human Rights Watch, Credit John Hulme.

Labor ministers from 19 Asian and Middle Eastern countries should endorse protections for migrant workers and increase dialogue with civil society, Migrant Forum Asia and Human Rights Watch said today. The ministers are meeting in Manila, Phillipines from April 17 to 19, 2012, as part of the second round of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, an inter-regional consultation between labor-sending countries and labor-receiving countries on contractual migrant workers.

The theme of the meeting is, “Sustaining Regional Cooperation Toward Improved Management of Labor Mobility in Asia.” Last week, organizers extended a few invitations to civil society representatives to observe some sessions but they will not be allowed to speak. Civil society will hold a parallel consultation process to discuss their recommendations for governments.

“Increased regional cooperation is essential for improving protection of migrant workers’ rights,” said William Gois, regional coordinator of Migrant Forum in Asia, a regional network of more than 200 migrants’ rights groups in Asia. “But as civil society, we want to know what is going on, we want to be part of the process, and we demand opportunities for genuine participation.”

The governments will discuss the draft for a “2012 Framework of Regional Collaboration of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue,” which would commit them to taking domestic, bilateral, and multilateral measures to increase the benefits of international labor migration. The draft is based on the input from the first dialogue and a meeting of senior officials in January. Preparatory documents for the conference include examples of best practices and recommendations on government oversight of four stages of migration: recruitment, employment abroad, preparation for return, and reintegration.

The current draft framework contains provisions that will help prevent abuse and foster greater benefits from migration. These include reducing recruitment costs, developing standard employment contracts, and making recruiting agencies responsible for the activities of local-level labor brokers. The draft also recommends pre-departure and post-arrival information seminars for migrant workers and government action to inspect workplaces and enforce labor laws.

The draft framework also calls on governments to enhance workers’ skills and certifications, improve mechanisms for balancing labor supply and demand, and recognize the value of experience gained abroad. Finally, it recommends provision of safe, affordable transit home and research on helping migrant workers to save money.

“The draft framework contains many positive elements that could help reduce recruitment-related exploitation and workplace abuse of contractual migrant workers,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch. “But it should also call on governments to revise labor laws and immigration policies that contribute to abuse, especially the exclusion of domestic workers from labor codes and sponsorship systems that link a worker’s residency to his or her employer.”

Civil society groups representing migrants’ organizations, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based-groups, and trade unions across Asia will hold a parallel process. They will discuss recommendations for reforms to the sponsorship system, standardized contracts with comprehensive labor protections for migrant domestic workers, and proposals for a reference wage as an alternative to a minimum wage. They will also discuss the draft framework for regional cooperation.

Migrant workers play a key economic role. They fill labor demands in host countries and provide much-needed income for their own countries. In 2011, the World Bank estimates, Asian migrants sent home US$191 billion in remittances. Gulf countries in particular rely heavily on Asian contract labor; for example, there is approximately one migrant domestic worker for every two Kuwaiti citizens. 

But many migrants are at high risk of abuse, the groups said. Domestic workers are excluded from basic labor protections such as a weekly rest day and limits to working hours. Many migrants have limited information about their rights and face abuses such as deception about their jobs, heavy debt burdens from excessive recruitment fees, unpaid wages, and hazardous work conditions. Limited access to redress means that some get trapped in situations of forced labor and trafficking. 

“Governments in the Abu Dhabi Dialogue should ensure that the framework for regional cooperation incorporates full protection of migrant workers’ human rights,” said Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, a Philippine-based migrants’ rights group.  “They should also develop a concrete action plan with benchmarks to monitor their progress.” 

The groups called on participating governments to ratify and implement international labor and human rights standards such as ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

Labor-sending countries in the Abu Dhabi Dialogue include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Labor-receiving countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea will participate as observers. The first round of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue was hosted by the United Arab Emirates in 2008 and was an offshoot from the Colombo Process, a regional meeting of labor-sending countries.

Vietnamese Prisoners of Conscience Ta Phong Tan, Dieu Cay, Phan Thanh Hai in an undated photo. Photo courtesy DânLàmBáo.

The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights calls on the Vietnamese authorities to immediately release bloggers Nguyen Van Hai (pen-name Dieu Cay), Phan Thanh Hai (Anh Ba Saigon) and Ta Phong Tan (Justice and Truth) and drop all charges against them. The three are charged under Article 88.2 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code for “spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” This crime is punishable by ten to twenty years in prison.

“Dieu Cay has been detained incommunicado for the past 17 months in gross violation of domestic and international law, and he should never have been arrested in the first place. A trial under these conditions would be nothing other than a parody of justice,” said Vo Van Ai, President of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights.

A prisoner of conscience, Dieu Cay has been detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression. He co-founded the independent Free Vietnamese Journalists’ Club in 2007 and is a popular blogger. He has written articles critical of China’s foreign policy on Vietnam and taken part in peaceful protests. He is due to be tried on April 17th.

Dieu Cay’s lawyers Ha Huy Son and Nguyen Quoc Dat said that it was also possible that the trial could be postponed until after the “sensitive” date of April 30th, the anniversary of the Communist take-over and the fall of Saigon. The three are charged with posting 421 articles on their blogs that “distorted and opposed the State.”

The lawyers were allowed to see Dieu Cay on March 29th for the first time, and have met him again for a second time. They say that Dieu Cay has lost a lot of weight in prison. He continues to reject the accusations against him and insists that he has committed no crime. His lawyers said that Dieu Cay refuses to sign any papers concerning the case, and even refused to read the Indictment drawn up by the prosecution.

Popular Vietnamese blogger Dieu Cay in an undated photo. RFA Photo.

He was first arrested in April 2008 and sentenced to 30 months in prison on alleged charges of “tax evasion.” He and his blog were under surveilience for several years because he advocated for democracy and human rights, exposed corruption and and criticized China. The agency which arrested him had nothing to do with taxes: it was the Internal Security and Counter-Espionage Departments of the Ministry of Public Security. Yet the government denies targeting him.

The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights alerted the United Nations of his case, and in 2009 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention pronounced him a victim of arbitrary detention and called for his release.

Concerned about reports last year that he was gravely ill, Amnesty International issued an urgent action for his release, calling prison conditions in Vietnam “harsh,” and adding that poor food and limited health care force prisoners to be reliant on additional supplies from their families.

Amnesty said he was held incommunicado for several months after being transferred to a prison further from his home in Ho Chi Minh City, making it difficult for his family to visit him: “Political prisoners held incommunicado are particularly vulnerable to torture and ill-treatment.”

Instead of releasing Dieu Cay on completion of his sentence on October 19^th, 2010, the authorities detained him under a second charge of “spreading propaganda against the state” (Article 88). Since then, his family have been denied all visits and not even been informed of his whereabouts. They had serious concerns for his health, and did not know if he was dead or alive. This 17-month detention contravenes Vietnam’s Criminal Procedures Code (Article 120) which limits pre-trial detention for “national security offenders” to a maximum of four months, extendable three times only in “serious cases”, after which the detainee must either be released or “other deterrent measures” may be applied.

The other two bloggers to stand trial with Dieu Cay, Phan Thanh Hai and Ta Phong Tan are also members of the Club of Free Journalists. Phan Thanh Hai, born in 1969, was arrested on October 18^th, 2010 and has remained in detention since then, also in violation of the Criminal Procedures Code.

“Do we have the right to call for the abrogation of Article 88? I say that we do. As citizens who have voted for our elected representatives, we are entitled to petition the National Assembly and urge them to repeal any laws that are useless, obsolete, or which go against the people’s interests. This is our right,” he wrote.

Born in 1968, Ta Phong Tan is a former Policewoman who posted articles on the Internet on Police abuse and state violations of human rights. She was arrested on September 5^th, 2011. She is defended by lawyer Nguyen Thanh Luong.

The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights calls on Vietnam to immediately release these three bloggers who are detained for the legitimate expression of their peaceful opinions. All charges against them should be immediately dropped and they should regain their full citizenship rights.

“Vietnam has signed most key UN human rights treaties and it is candidate for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council in 2014-2016. Yet it continues to blatantly flaunt its disrespect of the most basic human rights. Vietnam must respect its international commitments and call off this mockery of justice before it is too late”, said Vo Van Ai.

Over 100 civil society organizations and networks across the ASEAN region have called for the release of the draft ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and the initiation of meaningful public consultations on its content in a public statement. The organizations expressed their “grave concern and disappointment over the continuing secrecy in the drafting process” of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). The Declaration is being drafted by the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), which has been meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, starting April 9^th.

The draft has been in development for nearly a year, but has not yet been released to the public. Civil society has been largely excluded from the drafting process as well. Only the AICHR representatives of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand have solicited input from civil society on the historic Declaration. Meanwhile, civil society organizations that have submitted recommendations on the Declaration have received no official response from the AICHR.

“The peoples of ASEAN, whose human rights the Declaration is supposed to uphold, are being left in the dark,” said Yap Swee Seng, the Executive Director of Bangkok based Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) . “They are not being given any meaningful way to ensure that their concerns are presented, received and reflected in the Declaration. This threatens to fundamentally undermine the legitimacy of the Declaration.”

The joint statement also calls upon AICHR to implement specific steps to ensure that the process of drafting the Declaration will be credible, inclusive, transparent, reflective and consistent with universal human rights standards. These steps include the immediate release of the draft, public consultations, and the translation of the draft into national and local languages.

“Consultations without a draft of the AHRD at hand are meaningless, and a Declaration adopted without meaningful and broad-based consultations will not be legitimate,” said Dr. Pung Chhiv Kek, President of LICADHO, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. “ASEAN and AICHR risk making themselves an outcast among regional organizations if they ignore civil society and impose a Declaration drafted without public input.”

The joint statement has so far been endorsed by over 100 organizations and networks representing a wide range of sectors in ASEAN member states, including organizations representing youth, women, child rights, LGBT, migrant workers, labor unions, and farmers; environmental, human rights, and development organizations and academic institutions.

The AHRD is widely predicted to be adopted at the 44th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in July in Phnom Penh. “The AICHR should postpone its submission of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration to the AMM in July if no meaningful public consultations were held in the finalization of this document,” said Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence of Indonesia (Kontras).