ARTICLE 19 and civil society partners published an open letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, urging him to make a public call on Vietnamese authorities to release 4 environmental activists from imprisonment.
The group’s letter points out that alarm about climate change cannot be separated from protections for environmental activists and that these political prisoners are emblematic victims of a new wave of repression in Vietnam that threatens progress in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The groups call for the United Nations to urgently press the Vietnamese government to end its policies and practices that subvert rather than support human rights, and emphasise that there can be no progress on climate change and development without an active civil society that can freely rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. They call on the UN to remind Vietnam that, as a newly-elected member of the UN Human Rights Council, it has an obligation to uphold the highest human rights standards.