Speaking today at the annual Vietnam Human Rights Day event on Capitol Hill, Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) said that the U.S. should be “conditioning” any expansion of trade benefits or arms sales to Vietnam on “significant, verifiable, and irreversible improvements” in religious freedom, labor rights, Internet freedom, and other democratic freedoms. Congress designated May 11^th as “Vietnam Human Rights Day” in 1994.

    As Chairman of the congressional panel that oversees international human rights, Smith also urged President Trump, who will be meeting with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in three weeks, to seek the release of prisoners of conscience and to “make sure that the Vietnamese Government understands that major human rights improvements are necessary for a strong and healthy partnership between our countries.”  Smith’s remarks can be found here.

    “There is a direct connection between U.S. power and prosperity and the advance of justice, human rights, and the rule of law in Vietnam,” said Smith to a crowd of over 200 people meeting in the U.S. Capitol.  “Without human rights improvements, nothing will change in Vietnam, and the American people will continue to subsidize the harsh repression of democracy advocates, journalists, and religious groups.  It is our hope that the Administration can seek the release of 100-plus religious and political prisoners, such as human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, Buddhist leader Thich Quang Do, blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh and others from Vietnam’s diverse religious and ethnic communities—Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Khmer Krom, Montagnard, Hmong, Hoa Hao and Cao Dai.”
 

    The Vietnamese Communist government severely restricts religious freedom in Vietnam. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended on May 1, 2017 that Vietnam be designated by the State Department as a “Country of Particular Concern,” the annual blacklist of countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and Egypt that torture and jail religious believers and severely restrict religious practice.  USCIRF has made the same recommendation each year since 2002.  

From left, Dr. Quan Nguyen, the organizer of Vietnam Human Rights Day, China human rights advocate Wei Jingsheng and Rep. Smith at the May 11 event on Capitol Hill.

     Smith (NJ-04) is the author of the Frank Wolf International Freedom Act, which became law in December, 2016.  He urged the Administration to use all the available tools in that bill, such as visa denials, to hold accountable Vietnamese officials who perpetuate the torture and detention of religious believers. 

    Smith also announced plans to re-introduce the Vietnam Human Rights Act, a bill he sponsored that passed four times previously in the House of Representatives, with overwhelming bipartisan support, only to be held up in the U.S. Senate. That bill would require more concerted U.S. action on human rights, including religious freedom, in Vietnam.

    
    Smith has held a dozen hearing on human rights in Vietnam.

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