Vietnam: Human Rights

Lord Avebury
asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will make representations to the Government of Vietnam about the recommendations made by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, in its report Vietnam: Twelve Human Rights Defenders Have the Floor. [HL3414]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman)
We, with our EU partners, regularly raise human rights issues with the Vietnamese Government. The biannual EU-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, which was established in 2003, is the main forum for raising our concerns. The most recent dialogue was held on 20 December 2006.

The EU and other like-minded partners have lobbied the Vietnamese focusing on the recent actions against dissident groups and individual political activists in Vietnam on three separate occasions since the beginning of March.

My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Trade, Investment and Foreign Affairs, Ian McCartney, raised the human rights issue at a recent bilateral with the Vietnamese Vice Minister, Le Cung Phung, during the EU/Association of South East Asian Nations Foreign Ministers meeting on 14 and 15 March.