Vietnam secures UNHRC seat despite concerns over crackdown on climate activists

Country’s election to the UN’s top human rights body comes as several activists are arrested for tax evasion, reports Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Vietnam has been elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) despite mounting criticism over its arbitrary arrests of several rights activists and climate advocates.

The south Asian nation on Tuesday received 145 out of 189 votes at the UN General Assembly, becoming one of the 14 countries to be granted a three-year term on the council from January 2023.

The Vietnamese government reportedly led an “intense propaganda and lobbying drive” to support its efforts to be elected to the council, even as rights organisations have raised alarms over Hanoi’s record of cracking down on high-profile climate activists.

Four rights organisations on Monday noted that since announcing its candidacy in February 2021, Vietnam had detained, arrested or sentenced at least 48 journalists, activists and NGO leaders for arbitrary crimes.

“The Vietnamese government should demonstrate a genuine commitment to robust and rights-respecting climate policies by immediately and unconditionally releasing wrongfully imprisoned environmental defenders,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

“As a new Human Rights Council member, the Vietnamese government should show that it’s prepared to uphold human rights rather than violate them.”

The backlash against the one-party state comes amid the arrest and imprisonment of four environmental advocates – Nguy Thi Khanh, Dang Dinh Bach, Mai Phan Loi and Bach Hung Duong – on charges of tax evasion.

Nguy Thi Khanh, once touted as the “Asian environmental hero” by the Vietnamese government, was prosecuted and sentenced to two years in prison in June for allegedly failing to pay a 10 per cent tax on the prize money received by her on winning a coveted award.

Ms Khanh’s sentencing was met with international condemnation, including calls for her release by the US, the UK, Canada, Germany and the European Union.

Ms Khanh became the first Vietnamese winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her extensive work in the field of green energy – countering the government’s efforts to beef up its coal production.

Over the years, she has worked closely with the government and convinced them to strip 20,000MW of coal power from the national energy plan by 2030. The country of 99 million people is the ninth-largest consumer of coal in the world.

A worker rides his motorcycle near lorries transporting coal before it is loaded onto a Chinese ship at a port in Vietnam (REUTERS)

Supporters of the climate defender believe the charge against her is “trumped up” due to her relentless advocacy against Vietnam’s reliance on coal.

Her imprisonment has raised questions about Hanoi’s efforts to transition towards cleaner energy even as the country positions itself as the leading nation in southeast Asia to do so.

In October last year, the 46-year-old activist, along with several nonprofits alerted prime minister Pham Minh Chinh on the necessity to revise Vietnam’s Draft National Power Development Plan for the 2021-30 period. The draft plan proposed doubling coal-fired power capacity to account for up to 31.4 per cent of as much as 143.8GW of installed generation capacity planned in 2030.

“We still believe and hope in the determination of the prime minister and of senior leaders to make a climate breakthrough,” she had written in a Facebook post.

Her efforts started a conversation with the US, UK and the EU discussing possible energy deals with Vietnam. During Cop26, Vietnam announced its goal for achieving net zero emissions by 2050, while offering an ambitious agenda to decarbonise one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies by phasing out coal consumption by 2040.

In January this year, her office and home were searched and she was arrested a month later. She was denied access to lawyers for months, a method of punishment often used by the government against jailed critics.

Michael Sutton, executive director of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, called on the Vietnamese government to prove its commitment to human rights by releasing Ms Khanh and other environmental defenders jailed over the past two years.

“These are trumped-up charges. Tax laws are used across the globe to repress activism. This is just another example,” Mr Sutton told The Independent.

“It doesn’t make sense to us given she worked closely with the government to help Vietnam achieve its goals. She makes the country look good.

“We’re concerned about the human rights situation in Vietnam and what the arrests say about the future of the country’s energy ambitions”.

“We are hopeful that diplomacy and political pressure will ensure the climate defendants’ release,” he further said, adding that US senator Patrick Leahy has written to the Vietnamese government asking for their freedom. The Democratic party senator is expected to lead a congressional delegation to Vietnam later this month.

In addition to Ms Khanh, environmental lawyer Dang Dinh Bach, who heads the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Centre, was sentenced to five years for tax evasion.

Prior to his arrest, Mr Bach was designated to monitor the implementation of the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Mr Bach, 44, was arrested on 24 June 2021 and held incommunicado without access to a lawyer or his wife and newborn child.  His sentence reportedly exceeded what was asked by the prosecutor by two years.

The indictment stated Mr Bach “had contacted foreign-based organisations and received their funding” to implement projects without approval along with evading over £51,000 in taxes from the period between 2016 and 2020.

His conviction is seen as an effort to prevent the establishment of a network of nonprofits to monitor the implementation of EVFTA, where the organisations could play a crucial role in advocating for land rights and the environment.

Similarly, journalist Mai Phan Loi was sentenced to a four-year prison term for tax fraud earlier this year, while activist Bach Hung Duong was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for a similar allegation.

All three were members of the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance – an organisation founded by Ms Khanh.

Critics have accused Hanoi of using the tax agencies to clamp down against advocates voicing their concern against coal expansion efforts.

“We were shocked by their arrests. It a cliche that activists get arrested for their dissent but both Mr Bach and Ms Khanh are not radical,” said Daniel King, an Australian legal adviser to local groups in Vietnam for over a decade.

“They were trying to work with the system to transition to cleaner energies given the country’s reliance on coal,” he told The Independent.

“Vietnam is setting ambitious goals to tackle the climate crisis due to the rising sea levels but the execution is threatened by the arrest of green advocates.”

Mr King added that the country’s legal system has been a facade for the ruling Communist party and is used to throttle dissent.

Even with key climate defenders behind bars, Vietnam is expected to receive billions of dollars through a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) at Cop27 this November to help finance its commitment to net zero.