Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 8 April this year, 118 Vietnamese citizens signed a declaration calling for the introduction of democracy in Vietnam. Potential political change on a large scale comes out of courage, and what we are seeing in Vietnam at the moment is reminiscent of the campaigns of Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia in the lead-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fifty US members of congress recently signed a declaration supporting the Vietnamese declaration, and soon members of the Australian parliament will be invited to sign a similar statement. I would call on all honourable members to sign it and I would hope that we could get more than 50 members supporting the campaign for democracy in Vietnam. Other parliaments and assemblies have also signed the declaration supporting the call for democracy in Vietnam, as have members of the former Charter 77, which I referred to, including former President Vaclav Havel.

In November, APEC will be meeting in Vietnam. This is a major opportunity to highlight human rights breaches that are occurring in Hanoi and throughout Vietnam. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government has cracked down on those 118 people and the hundreds of others who have since joined them who signed the declaration calling for democracy. Truong Quoc Huy was arrested in an internet cafe for participating in an online discussion on democracy. His whereabouts are currently unknown. Others have been placed under house arrest, they have had their computers seized and their telephone lines cut.

A few months ago, with the honourable member for Blaxland, I attended a function in Bankstown where there was a telephone hook-up with one of the Catholic priests who signed the declaration calling for democracy in Vietnam. It was a great honour and a privilege to hear him on the telephone. When democracy comes to Vietnam, as it will, 8 April 2006 will be seen as the turning point. I am glad that we are being joined in the chamber by the honourable member for Oxley. He is also a vocal supporter of democracy in Vietnam and I know he has been a supporter of the declaration of 8 April 2006.

There is an obligation on all of us who are elected democratically to speak up for those who have had their rights taken from them from by repressive regimes. This is the best organised and most potent campaign for democracy that we have seen since 1975. Economic reform, which the Vietnamese government have embraced, is not enough. They also need to embrace democratic reform. Those campaigners for democracy in Vietnam have the support and best wishes of all of us.