Strasbourg, 09/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament says that trade relations with Vietnam (the EU's main trading partner in Asia and with which a free trade agreement has been concluded) do not justify a blind eye being turned to the continuing human rights violations that have increased over the last six months.
In an urgent resolution adopted in the plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday 9 June, the Parliament calls for the Vietnamese authorities to stop all harassment, intimidation, and persecution of human rights defenders and to stop the heavy prison sentences and unfair trials perpetrated against bloggers and journalists.
The Parliament notes that the repression of peaceful protesters following the lack of institutional response to an ecological disaster that decimated the nation's fish stocks and provoked a wave of human rights violations and arrests, are acts of torture. The visit of US President Barack Obama last May served as a pretext for fresh arrests of human rights defenders and bloggers.
The inquiry announced by the Vietnamese government is a good thing, but it is the release of all political prisoners, human rights defenders and religious leaders that is called for by the Parliament, which asks the European External Action Service (EEAS) to do everything possible to obtain this.
The Parliament also calls on the EU to strengthen its political dialogue on human rights under the comprehensive partnership and cooperation agreement of 2012, which contains arrangements on this. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)