Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-15-Speech-4-145"
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"en.20030515.9.4-145"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the restrictions on freedom of opinion and religion in Vietnam have assumed alarming proportions. Protestants, Buddhists and the members of the Hoa Hoa and Cao Dai groups are being persecuted, threatened and arrested for practising their faith openly. Church dignitaries are being placed under house arrest for years at a time. Information is being deliberately suppressed on a massive scale. For over a year, there has been a directive expressly prohibiting citizens from receiving satellite television broadcasts, and the Ministry of Information is harassing the owners of Internet cafés to log the on-line activities of their customers. The number of journalists and dissidents being intimidated and arrested is steadily mounting. Vietnam has signed the 1996 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was sponsored by the United Nations. Yet national decrees are being adopted to circumvent this voluntary commitment by the back door, enabling penalties to be imposed on anyone who allegedly poses a threat to national security.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats calls on the Vietnamese Government to fulfil its obligations under international law, and to tolerate and guarantee full freedom of belief and opinion at last. Persecution, harassment and imprisonment of believers and regime critics must stop, and the free flow of information must finally be guaranteed. When human rights are violated on a sustained basis, the sovereignty of the states simply remains on paper, further proof that such governments lack something that is essential to act on a truly sovereign basis.
Unless Parliament's demands are met in the near future, there is only one option: that will be for the European Union to suspend its financial support to Vietnam. I very much hope, Commissioner Wallström, that the Commission will endorse this position."@en1
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