Reports surfaced last month that Vietnamese immigration police officers were allowed into Yongah hill by the Australian department of immigration to interview the asylum seekers and the officers asked them to fill forms to allow them to be repatriated to Vietnam.? Reports say that after this five Vietnamese asylum seekers escaped from the detention centre out of fear and were caught later and re-detained? (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/18698015/men-fled-vietnamese-police-visit/).
Human rights watch reports that trend-lines show a worsening situation in Vietnam. In the first few months of 2013, more people have been convicted in political trials than in the whole of last year (http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/04/vietnam-rights-abuses-spotlight).
TAKE ACTION NOW:
- Contact UNHCR (http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/contact_hq) and ask them to take action on this matter as well as the issue of all mass deportations by the Australian government.? For example more than 1000 Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been deported since last year in the same way, most of them Tamils and many are still being isolated for deportation.? UNHCR?s response has been muted or almost non-existence.? Last time we heard they are supposed to be working for refugees.
- Contact the UN Human rights commission and alert them about this matter InfoDesk@ohchr.org
- Contact you local MP or any other Australian politicians you think should be alerted to this: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members
More background information about Vietnam?s human rights situation in 2013: http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/vietnam?page=2