A California state lawmaker urged President Biden to press Vietnam’s government on its human-rights record during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week.
Most media attention heading into the APEC gathering has focused on Biden’s upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today. But the summit will convene numerous heads of state and CEOs in San Francisco throughout the week.
In a letter to Biden on Monday, California state senator Janet Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam and fled to the U.S. with her family during the fall of Saigon, expressed her “deep concerns over ongoing human and religious rights violations” by the country’s communist government.
“As the United States hosts this year’s summit, we have a golden opportunity to shed light on abuses committed by Vietnam against its own people and to advance basic human rights protections such as the freedom of speech, religion, and assembly,” she wrote.
Vietnamese president Vo Van Thuong is participating in the APEC meetings this week, though it’s not clear if Biden has plans to meet with him. As America has sought to rally its partners to counter Chinese coercion globally, it has drawn closer to Vietnam, a one-party state with a questionable track record on human rights. Biden met with Thuong during a trip to Vietnam in September, portraying today’s warm U.S.–Vietnamese diplomatic ties as a significant marker of progress from the strained bilateral relationship that followed the Vietnam War.
Despite improving relations, the State Department has not shied away from calling out Vietnam’s political repression, stating in its 2022 human-rights report: “National Assembly elections in May 2021 were neither free nor fair; there was limited competition among Communist Party-vetted candidates.”
Nguyen highlighted the case of Le Trong Hung, a political figure and journalist who was sentenced to a five-year prison term for recruiting candidates to run against the ruling party. She also pointed to religious repression, highlighting the arrest of Y Krech Bya, a Christian evangelist arrested during Easter mass.
“My family fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon to escape the reprisals of the government. I know first-hand of the brutality that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is capable of,” Nguyen wrote.
California State Senator Urges Biden to Confront Vietnam’s Socialist ‘Brutality’
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16.11.2023
A California state lawmaker urged President Biden to press Vietnam’s government on its human-rights record during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week.
Most media attention heading into the APEC gathering has focused on Biden’s upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today. But the summit will convene numerous heads of state and CEOs in San Francisco throughout the week.
In a letter to Biden on Monday, California state senator Janet Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam and fled to the U.S. with her family during the fall of Saigon, expressed her........
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