Vietnam, US resume talks on human rights after three-year break
HANOI - Vietnam and the United States resumed bilateral talks in Hanoi on human rights after a three-year break.
"The result of my meetings today is that we will continue to talk," US Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Barry Lowenkron told reporters.
"There is a recognition that changes are under way in Vietnam, with efforts to reform the legal code for example," he said. "Certainly, the release of Nguyen Khac Toan was an event that was noted and appreciated in Washington."
The 50 year-old cyber-dissident was released from jail late January after serving a third of his 12-year jail sentence for "spying".
Lowenkron said the resumption of talks was another sign of improving relations between the two countries after Phan Van Khai last year became the first Vietnamese prime minister to visit Washington since the end of the war in 1975.
Vietnam holds annual human rights talks with several foreign partners, including Australia and the
European Union.
The regime is consistently accused by human rights organisations of tolerating no dissent and jailing anyone critical of the ruling Communist Party and the government.
Lowenkron said he presented foreign ministry officials with a list of prisoners of concern. He did not say how many or give their names.
"We also had a very good discussion on religious freedom, building on the progress already been made and pointing out some other areas that we want, that we hope the Vietnamese government could address," he said.
"Obviously we have the religious freedom agenda, but there are also political rights, questions over the right of assembly", he said.
Last May, the US State Department said Vietnam had started easing restrictions on religious worship. But Washington kept the communist nation on its list of countries "of particular concern" over religious freedoms.
Agence France Presse - February 20, 2006.
Washington resumes rights dialogue with Vietnam
HANOI - The United States has resumed talks with communist Vietnam on issues of human rights and religious freedoms after a three-year suspension, a U.S. official said on Monday.
"This is the beginning and we will work to make it a result-based dialogue," Barry Lowenkron, U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, told reporters after the talks in Hanoi.
The two countries have developed closer ties in recent years, after putting the Vietnam War behind them, but Washington halted its "human rights dialogue" with Hanoi in 2003 due to insufficient progress on key rights issues.
In 2004 the United States put Vietnam on a list of countries that abuse religious freedoms, a charge Hanoi has repeatedly denied.
Lowenkron said the United States had noted the January release of activist Nguyen Khac Toan, who was jailed in 2002 after being accused of helping an overseas dissident group collect complaints against the government via the Internet.
During the meeting he gave the Vietnamese a list of other prisoners of conscience and urged their release.
Diplomats say the communist-led Southeast Asian country has made progress on improving human rights and religious freedoms, but Hanoi has to do more.
Vietnam defended its human rights record in August 2005 when it released the nation's first "White Paper on Human Rights" and accused foreign-based dissident groups of attempting to blacken the country's image.
Reuters - February 20, 2006.
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