The government of Vietnam severely restricts basic civil and political rights in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Vietnam ratified in 1982. The Communist Party of Vietnam maintains its monopoly on political power through repression, prohibiting independent rights groups, labor unions, media, many religious groups, and other organizations operating outside government control. Human rights activists and bloggers who criticize the government or advocate for reform face police intimidation, harassment, restricted movement, arbitrary arrest and detention, prosecution, and long prison sentences after unfair trials. The police routinely use torture and beatings to extract confessions. The criminal justice system, including the judiciary, lacks independence, and investigations and trials are carried out without due process protections. Political dissidents and civil society activists are frequently sentenced to long prison terms on fabricated national security charges.
The European Union and Vietnam have engaged in human rights discussions since the 1990s, and have held approximately 20 formal human rights dialogues since 2002. In this period, however, Vietnam has made almost no progress on the numerous issues raised by EU officials. Repression has intensified since the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) came into force in 2020, as Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations had anticipated, which is why we called for more explicit and enforceable human rights obligations from the outset.
Regrettably, the EU has remained reluctant to link ratification of the EU-Vietnam trade deals to specific human rights benchmarks, missing an opportunity to affect positive change, and instead emboldening the Vietnamese government's sense of impunity.
Article 1 of the EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), on which the EVFTA depends, identifies respect for human rights as an "essential element" of the agreement.
Despite this, and despite the human rights obligations in the EVFTA itself, the Vietnamese government has sharply intensified its repression since the EVFTA came into force. Authorities have increased the number of arrests and prosecutions of dissidents and critics of the government. There are now more than 170 political prisoners in Vietnam, jailed for exercising their right to freedom of expression or for their peaceful activism for human rights and democracy, and charged under draconian laws. Human Rights Watch recently documented that the Vietnamese authorities are increasingly using a vague, overbroad, and abusive provision of the penal code, article 331, which prohibits the "abuse of democratic freedoms," both to silence prominent activists and to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services, corruption, or police abuse.
Several people have also been arrested and prosecuted in recent years for advocacy for labor rights that should be protected under the EVFTA, and some were arrested and imprisoned specifically for their work related to the EVFTA. The journalist Pham Chi Dung was arrested in 2019 after addressing a message to the European Parliament before the agreement was finalized, and has been behind bars since. Activists Mai Phan Loi and Dang Dinh Bach were arrested as they tried to join the EVFTA's Domestic Advisor Group, tasked with monitoring implementation of the agreement. Mai Phan Loi was released in September 2023, but Dang Dinh Bach is still serving a five-year prison sentence. In 2024, the authorities even arrested Nguyen Van Binh, a senior government official involved in leading the government's discussions with international organizations on labor reforms, and charged him in relation to the alleged disclosure of classified information.
We recognize that the EU raises these abuses during the annual EU-Vietnam human rights dialogues. However, these types of interventions, as well as EU member states' statements at the United Nations Human Rights Council, have had no tangible impact on the Vietnamese government's conduct, nor have they led to any significant reforms.
Human Rights Watch urges the EU to seriously reconsider its approach to Vietnam's human rights abuses.
The EU needs to take stronger action. Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union states that human rights, democracy, and the rule of law must be promoted "in the development and implementation of the different areas of the Union's external action," including trade. EU foreign ministers reiterated this commitment in the EU Strategic Framework on Human Rights and Democracy and in all Action Plans adopted since, including the current one.
The persistent lack of progress on the issues raised during the dialogue should be linked to concrete consequences for bilateral relations. Possible actions include:
- The threat of suspension or other consequences under the bilateral Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), and/or of the related Free Trade Agreement, pursuant to article 1 of the PCA, which identifies the "respect for democratic principles and human rights" as an "essential element" of the agreement;
- The adoption of targeted sanctions against Vietnamese officials and entities responsible for systematic repression in the country;
- Leading on actions on Vietnam, such as cross-regional joint statements or the adoption of resolutions, at the UN Human Rights Council.
On substantive areas of concern for the dialogue, Human Rights Watch recommends the EU focus on six priority areas regarding the dire human rights situation in Vietnam: 1) political prisoners and detainees; 2) environmental activists; 3) repression of labor rights; 4) unfair legal treatment for criminal suspects and defendants; 5) restrictions on freedom of movement; and 6) repression of the right to freely practice religion and belief.
These issues should be thoroughly articulated in public statements following the human rights dialogue, along with measures under consideration should Vietnamese authorities once again reject the release of human rights defenders and political prisoners and not commit to reform abusive legislation and open civic and political space.
Their unwillingness to do so will result in this year's dialogue amounting yet again to a box-ticking exercise, in which the EU will continue to serve as a bystander to the Vietnam government's intensifying repression.
The EU should publicly and privately call on the Vietnamese government to:
- Immediately release all political prisoners and detainees held for exercising their basic civil and political rights (see list below);
- Amend or repeal penal code articles 117 and 331 in conformity with Vietnam's obligations under the ICCPR.
We urge you to raise the following cases of prisoners held for exercising their basic rights. Several are suffering from severe health issues. All those arbitrarily detained should be immediately and unconditionally released.
- Pham Doan Trang, writer and human rights advocate
- Pham Chi Dung, independent journalist
- Le Dinh Luong, democracy campaigner
- Hoang Duc Binh, labor activist
- Nguyen Van Tuc, democracy campaigner
- Nguyen Tuong Thuy, independent journalist
- Tran Anh Kim, democracy campaigner
- Tran Van Bang, democracy campaigner
- Dinh Van Hai, democracy campaigner
- Nguyen Thai Hung, YouTuber focusing on human rights and political issues
2. Repression of Labor Rights
The EU should publicly and privately call on the Vietnamese government to:
- Ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 87 and for the already ratified ILO Convention No. 98, engage with the ILO to ensure that the convention is implemented with laws and regulations consistent with the goals and international standards these agreements are meant to uphold;
- Immediately implement reforms to allow independent labor unions to form and ensure that worker organizers outside government-controlled worker organizations are protected from retaliation.
Background
Vietnam has still not ratified ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, despite the government's pledge, in correspondence with the European Parliament and EU officials, to ratify the convention by the end of 2023. The self-imposed deadline is linked to the EVFTA obligation to "make continued and sustained efforts towards ratifying ... the fundamental ILO conventions." Besides missing this deadline, Vietnamese authorities have made almost no progress toward meeting core obligations in conventions they have already ratified, such as ILO Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining," or ensuring the basic rights of workers to organize and freely operate independent trade unions.
However, even if the Vietnamese government were to ratify this and other key ILO conventions, there is little indication that they would implement them or undertake the domestic reforms to realize the agreements' obligations, in particular, those allowing for the creation and existence of independent unions.
The government does not allow independent unions to represent workers, contrary to its claims otherwise, and is not demonstrating any significant inclination to undertake reforms to change that.
The Vietnamese government claims that the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor is a "labor confederation" of enterprise-level unions. But the General Confederation of Labor is not independent nor does it comprise labor unions: its leaders are appointed by the Vietnamese government or the Communist Party of Vietnam, and any "unions" and "federations" that exist under the confederation are almost all led by people appointed by management at the enterprise level.[1]
The Vietnamese government claims that the 2021 Labor Law provides for independent unions, but this too is inaccurate. New provisions in the Labor Law provide for the creation of "worker organizations" or "worker representative organizations" at the enterprise level. In theory, these could be independent of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. But no such organizations are known to exist, nor could they, in practical terms. The government has not promulgated necessary regulations to implement the new labor law or created any legal and bureaucratic mechanisms to facilitate the creation or registration of worker organizations.[2]
The absence of any implementing regulations to the labor law, combined with existing provisions in Vietnam's Trade Union Law, sends a clear message that Vietnam's government has no intention of allowing independent trade unions to come into being, and instead intends to have all current and future worker representative organizations governed or controlled by the government-controlled VCGL.
The dynamic of state control of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor is also demonstrated by a recent Communist Party directive, Directive 24, that orders enhanced scrutiny of labor groups, civil society, and foreign organizations, specifically in the context of Vietnam's implementation of new trade agreements with other countries and with the ILO.
Numerous articles in state-run media also reflect the Vietnamese government's hostility to independent labor organizations or unions, calling them "hostile forces" that use "plots and tricks" to "oppose the Party and the State… causing social disorder and hindering the lives of laborers in our country," or arguing that the purpose of "so-called independent trade unions" is to "form a domestic oppositional political force, proceeding to carry out a 'color revolution' or 'street revolution' to overthrow the Communist Party and eliminate the political regime in Vietnam."
Vietnamese authorities' arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of labor rights reform advocates reflect these attitudes. In April 2024, Vietnamese police arrested Nguyen Van Binh and Vu Minh Tien, senior officials in Vietnam's then Ministry of Labor and the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor who had advocated for more meaningful labor reforms and some independence for trade unions. Two labor rights activists, Mai Phan Loi and Dang Dinh Bach, were also arrested after they tried to join the EVFTA's Domestic Advisory Group, tasked with monitoring implementation of the agreement.[4] And in 2019, while the EVFTA was still being debated in Europe, the journalist Pham Chi Dung was arrested in 2019 after writing a message to the European Parliament critical of the agreement; he has been incarcerated since.
These and many other negative rights developments in Vietnam have led several human rights and labor rights groups to file complaints with the EU's Single Entry Point, alleging that persistent serious abuses constitute a breach of the EVFTA.
This record of failures of legal reforms, arbitrary arrests of labor reform advocates, and attacks on independent unions, demonstrates that Vietnam's commitments on human rights and labor rights, including those communicated during the EVFTA negotiations, were unfounded or not made in good faith.
The EU should publicly and privately call on the Vietnamese government to:
- Immediately and unconditionally release all environmentalist activists jailed for the peaceful expression of their views, including Dang Dinh Bach and Ngo Thi To Nhien, and drop all charges against them;
- End restrictions on environmentalist organizations that are in violation of international law.
Background
Despite Vietnamese government assurances on addressing global climate change, Vietnam has repeatedly arrested and prosecuted environmentalists engaged in combatting production and use of fossil fuels, especially coal. During preparations for the EU-Vietnam human rights dialogue in May 2023, the authorities released prominent environmentalist Nguy Thi Khanh five months earlier than her prison sentence. But three weeks later, police arrested Hoang Thi Minh Hong, another prominent national environmental activist, releasing her only following an outcry from students and faculty at Columbia University, where Vietnamese President To Lam was due to speak in September 2024. In July 2024, just before European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's visit to Hanoi, Ngo Thi To Nhien, the executive director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
The environmental campaigner Dang Dinh Bach, who was sentenced to prison in January 2022 on politically motivated tax evasion charges, remains behind bars. In August 2023, he was reportedly hit on the head from behind for trying to tell his family on a phone call how he was being treated. Dang Dinh Bach has dedicated his life to protecting communities from pollution, phasing out plastic waste, and supporting the Vietnamese government's transition to clean energy.
Dang Dinh Bach was also an active leader of the NGO trade agreement network that civil society groups created to promote their participation in the Domestic Advisory Group, which, under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, was supposed to promote the participation of independent civil society groups in overseeing the implementation of the trade and sustainable development chapter of the agreement.
In May 2023, the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an opinion that the arrest and imprisonment of Dang Dinh Bach was arbitrary, and that the Vietnamese government should "release Mr. Bach immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations." However, he is not due for release until June 2026.
The EU should publicly and privately call on the Vietnamese government to:
- Repeal article 74 and article 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code and allow all people detained for any alleged violations, including national security crimes, to have immediate and regular access to legal counsel upon being arrested and throughout their pretrial detention;
- Immediately end the practice of conducting so-called "mobile trials";
- Amend the Criminal Procedure Code to allow all suspects to have unhindered access to defense lawyers in private, for as long and as frequently as the lawyers and their clients require it, and respect lawyer-defendant confidentiality.
Background
The Vietnamese government uses a double standard for citizens suspected of criminal violations. In cases involving what the government considers to be politically motivated offenses, the authorities curb the rights of suspects by denying them access to legal counsel for months, or even years; preventing visits by family members while the accused are in pretrial detention; and blocking family members, activists, and friends from attending their trials.
By contrast, for some non-political criminal cases in which authorities want to send a message to communities, prosecutors and courts stage public trials to name and shame the defendants (and indirectly, their families), and "educate" the public. In many cases, the courts have already predetermined that the defendants are guilty even before such public court spectacles begin.
In both political and non-political cases, the police, prosecutors, and courts violate the most central legal principles: a presumption of innocence in a fair trial before an independent court.
Vietnam's criminal procedure code stipulates that the procurator of the People's Supreme Procuracy can hold in detention a person suspected of violating national security until the investigation is concluded (article 173(5)), and can restrict the detainee's access to legal counsel until after investigation is concluded (article 74). In practice, this means that those who are suspected of violating national security offenses are regularly held in police custody without access to a lawyer for as long as the investigating officials deem appropriate.
The prominent rights activist Bui Tuan Lam was held in police detention from September 2022 until May 2023 without access to his lawyers. Officials in the case lied to his lawyers by claiming that Bui Tuan Lam had voluntarily waived his rights to be represented by counsel. Only when his wife, Le Thanh Lam, demanded to meet and hear that claim directly from her husband did the authorities yield, and cease blocking access for his lawyers. Officials then retaliated against the family's activism to help Bui Tuan Lam by refusing to allow his family inside the court to attend his trial on May 25, 2023. When his wife appeared outside the court with her relatives, police manhandled her, detained her for several hours, and beat up some of her relatives. Inside the court, the judge expelled one of the defense lawyers before he could even finish his oral argument. In August, defense lawyer Le Dinh Viet requested to meet with Bui Tuan Lam before his appeal trial, but the authorities rejected his request outright.
Similarly, authorities arrested Nguyen Minh Son on September 28, 2022 for posting his critical views about Communist Party leaders on Facebook. They charged him under article 117 of the penal code. As of September 14, 2023, almost a year later, authorities had still not allowed him to receive any visit from family members or meet with his defense lawyer.
This practice extends to detainees who were not charged with national security violations, but whose arrests were politically motivated. On June 1, 2024, police arrested independent journalist Truong Huy San, who was not allowed access to his lawyer for more than three months.
Vietnam frequently carries out what the authorities call "mobile trials" (xet xu luu dong), using makeshift courts in public spaces such as sports stadiums, local community spaces, schools or universities, or the headquarters of the government in a local ward to hold trials of criminal suspects. The authorities claim that such mobile trials are used to "educate" people about law and set an example for the public. Such mobile trials are usually conducted in areas where the defendants live, causing public embarrassment and shame for the defendant and their family.
In such mobile trials, the courts have invariably predetermined that the defendants are guilty in violation of the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. Vietnam had agreed at its UN Universal Periodic Review in 2019 to abolish these trials and uphold all due process rights, but has not implemented these changes.
On January 10, 2025, the court of Hung Ha district in Thai Binh province staged two mobile trials at the Dong Hung Ha High School where more than 1,600 high school students and teachers of the school were compelled to observe. In both trials, the defendants were from the same local communities as the students. In both cases, the defendants were convicted and sentenced to prison.
The EU should publicly and privately call on the Vietnamese government to:
- Allow all independent religious organizations to freely conduct religious activities and govern themselves. Churches and denominations that do not choose to join one of the officially authorized religious organizations with government-appointed boards should be allowed to operate independently;
- End government harassment, forced denunciations of faith, arrests, prosecutions, imprisonment, and ill-treatment of people because they are followers of disfavored religions, and release anyone currently being held for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of religion, belief, expression, peaceful assembly and association;
- Permit outside observers, including UN agencies, NGOs, and foreign diplomats, to have unhindered and unaccompanied access to the Central Highlands, including specifically to communes and villages inhabited by Montagnards and other marginalized communities. Ensure there is no retribution or retaliation against anyone who speaks to or otherwise communicates with such outside observers.
Background
The Vietnamese government restricts religious practice through legislation, registration requirements, harassment, and surveillance. Religious groups are required to gain approval from and register with the government as well as operate under government-controlled management boards. While authorities allow many government-affiliated churches and pagodas to hold worship services, they regularly ban religious activities they arbitrarily deem to be contrary to the "national interest," "public order," or "national unity." The government labels Dega Protestant, Ha Mon Catholic, Falun Gong, and other religious groups as ta dao ("evil religion") and harasses those who practice those beliefs.
The police monitor and sometimes violently crack down on religious groups operating outside government-controlled institutions. Unrecognized independent religious groups face constant surveillance, harassment, and intimidation, and their followers are subject to public criticism, forced renunciation of faith, detention, interrogation, torture, and imprisonment.
In March 2025, the authorities of Gia Lai province prosecuted and sentenced Montagnard religious activist Ro Cham Grong to seven years in prison. Two other Montagnard religious campaigners, Y Po Mlo and Y Thing Nie, are currently in police detention awaiting trial.
UN human rights experts expressed alarm about the discriminatory misuse of counterterrorism laws against Montagnard Indigenous peoples and Christian religious minorities in the country's Central Highlands.
In March, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom published its 2025 report, in which it recommended that the US government designate Vietnam as a "country of particular concern" for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the US International Religious Freedom Act.
Footnotes:
[1] Workers in Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) entities do not choose leaders or representatives who can bargain to set wages on their behalf and the leaders of enterprise-level "unions" do not have any role in choosing VGCL leaders or representatives. Insofar as the VGCL does bargain with management of companies or at the state-wide level, it does so in the interests of the government and the Communist Party of Vietnam, not on behalf of workers and not in a representative capacity.
[2] Moreover, even if a worker organization could come into existence, it would not be an "independent union" or meet international benchmarks for independent trade unions. Such organizations have limited powers under the labor law and there are no explicit provisions allowing them to affiliate or form federations independent of the VCGL.
