From Human Rights Watch

Vietnam intensified its systemic suppression of basic civil and political rights during 2018, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2019.

The repression included attacks on freedom of speech, association, and assembly, and freedom to practice religion. Despite Vietnam’s worsening human rights record, many donors and trade partners ignored these developments and carried on business as usual.

“Vietnam’s escalating crackdown and increasingly harsh prison sentences reveal an effort to try to break the will of those campaigning for reform, but the strategy is backfiring as more people demand their rights,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “International donors and trade partners should publicly support these brave rights defenders.”

In the 674-page World Report 2019, its 29th edition, Human Rights Watch reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth says that the populists spreading hatred and intolerance in many countries are spawning a resistance. New alliances of rights-respecting governments, often prompted and joined by civic groups and the public, are raising the cost of autocratic excess. Their successes illustrate the possibility of defending human rights – indeed, the responsibility to do so – even in darker times.

Read the full report here.