“Vietnam Loans Must be Tied to Improvements in Human Rights: Civil Society Groups”, 22 June 2016

Development assistance provided to Vietnam by foreign governments and banks helps to support security forces repressing the Vietnamese people and should be tied in future to improvements in the one-party communist state’s rights record, a group of six Vietnamese civil society organizations said in an open letter..

Much of that money is also lost to corruption, the group said in its June 20 letter sent to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, and the governments of Japan, Australia, and the United States…

“Rights activists and dissident bloggers face constant harassment and intimidation, including physical assault and imprisonment. Farmers have lost land to development projects without adequate compensation, and there is an absence of independent unions for workers.”…