Vietnam has won a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the 2023-2025 term with 145 votes, despite the country’s abysmal human rights violations.
The Southeast Asian nation was one of the 14 new council members voted by the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, marking its second election to the council. Vietnam was first elected in 2013 for the 2014-2016 term.
The 13 other countries elected to the council include Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania, South Africa, and Sudan.
International human rights groups were sceptical of Vietnam’s appointment to the council, given the country’s dismal human rights records and diplomatic support of major rights violators abroad. Vietnam was ranked as “not free” by the Freedom House.
The communist-controlled country has arrested at least 48 journalists and activists for arbitrary crimes since announcing its candidacy for the UNHRC on Feb. 22, 2021, according to the statement.
“We express particular concern that Vietnam has falsely characterized civil and political rights in the country as ‘better ensured,’ especially given the continued harassment and arrests of activists and journalists,” the statement reads.
More than 100 human rights defenders have been arrested in Vietnam since 2019 as the government imposed laws targeting individuals who speaks out in defense of their and others’ human rights, according to the groups.
“Our organizations believe that Vietnam, before seeking election into the HRC, needs to first demonstrate a genuine commitment to uphold the highest standards of human rights protection,” they said.
On Oct. 3, United Nations Watch, Human Rights Foundation, and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights released a joint report [pdf] detailing the rights abuses of UNHRC candidates, including Vietnam, Algeria, and Sudan.
The report states that Vietnam had opposed resolutions supporting human rights victims in Belarus and Iran during its 2014-2016 term in the council, and failed to support resolutions for human rights victims in Burundi and Syria.
Vietnam also supported counterproductive resolutions that undermined individual human rights or addressed issues beyond the competency of the council, it stated.
“Regrettably, when the U.N. itself ends up electing human rights violators to the Human Rights Council, it indulges the very of culture of impunity it is supposed to combat,” Irwin Cotler, head of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, said in a statement.
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