InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
HANOI - Vietnam "intensified its repression" of dissidents in 2011, jailing a string of peaceful activists and cracking down hard on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.
The situation in the communist country is "poor and worsening," and there is "no sign of any serious commitment to improve," according to the US-based campaign group.
"For quite some time, bad human rights situations in nearby countries like (Myanmar) and Cambodia have allowed Vietnam to escape critical notice," Phil Robertson, HRW's deputy director for Asia, told AFP.
"Now people are finally seeing Vietnam for what it is -- a government that severely persecutes peaceful political activists with long prison terms," he said.
Vietnam prosecuted at least 31 peaceful activists last year and sentenced them to a total of 172 years in prison, to be followed by a total of 75 years on probation, according to a HRW report -- part of a worldwide review of human rights in 2011.
"The Vietnam government intensified its repression of activists and dissidents during 2011, and cracked down harshly on freedom of expression, association, and assembly," the group said.
Dozens of bloggers, peaceful political and religious advocates, and land rights activists were jailed in 2011 under "vaguely defined articles" of the penal code, the report said.
It also decried Vietnam's use of administrative detention and forced labour to "cure" so-called social undesirables, including drug addicts.
In early 2011 there were 123 centres across the country holding about 40,000 people, including children as young as 12, with their detention not being subject to judicial oversight, the report said.
"Infringement of centre rules -- including the work requirement -- is punished by beatings with truncheons, shocks with electrical batons, and being locked in disciplinary rooms where detainees are deprived of food and water," it said.
