Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being a Victorian, I take no sides in this other matter. On Wednesday, 14 May 2014 I had the honour to attend the Labour Cause and Civil Society in Vietnam Conference organised by Bloc 8406 and hosted by the member for Fowler here in this Parliament House. The conference focused on the continuing suppression of the right of association and the right of peaceful assembly in Vietnam, and on the plight of labour activists Miss Do Thi Minh Hanh, Mr Doan Huy Chuong and Ms Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung who have suffered harsh and unjust jail terms for simply defending the rights of fellow workers.

Basic human rights, such as the right of association and the right of peaceful assembly, are still suppressed in Vietnam. Members of independent unions and civil society organisations that operate outside the Communist Party framework are still harassed, still terrorised and even jailed, as in the case of Miss Do Thi Minh Hanh, a worker rights advocate who is serving a seven-year prison sentence.

Hanh Do's mother, Mrs Tran Ngoc Minh, attended the conference and delivered an incredibly brave and powerful presentation. She made an emotional plea for the Australian government to press the Vietnamese government to address the concerns she has about her daughter's plight, the plight of exploited workers in Vietnam and the issue of the Vietnamese government's continuing abuse of human rights. Mrs Tran Ngoc Minh detailed in her speech at the conference that her 29-year-old daughter is currently incarcerated in Thanh Xuan prison in Hanoi City, Vietnam. The prison is 2,000 km from where her family lives.

The reason Minh Hanh has been in prison for over four years to date now is, as I said before, because she and her two of her friends, Ms Nguyen Haong Quoc Hung and Mr Doan Huy Chuong bravely stood up for factory workers at the My Phong shoe factory in a protest against exploitative work conditions. The trio wrote and circulated a list of demands when workers at this factory went on strike as a result of their company's arbitrary payment policies and their managers' abusive behaviour.

After standing up for her factory workers Minh Hanh was arrested and taken away on 23 February 2010 in the Lam Dong province of Vietnam's central highlands. On that day that she was arrested the police brutally bashed Minh Hanh in front of her mother, resulting in her face bleeding profusely. Minh Hanh was transported to Ho Chi Minh City police headquarters and was detained there for there for eight months before she was tried in a proceeding that did not afford her due legal process. She was sentenced to seven years' jail and her friends were sentenced to seven years' jail and nine years' jail respectively.

In the last four years, Minh Hanh has been transferred from one prison to another, simply for protesting about workers' rights. She has been forced to do hard labour, and has been assaulted several times. In one particularly brutal incident she was stripped naked and physically abused in a prison.

According to her mother, Minh Hanh is experiencing what may be the symptoms of breast cancer. But, guess what? She has been denied visits by a specialist doctor, despite several requests. This is completely unacceptable; urgent medical care needs to be provided to this young lady.

The efforts of her friends Chuong Doan and Ms Hung Nguyen also need to be recognised. According to Freedom Now Chuong Doan is the founding member of the United Farmers-Workers Organization. He and his girlfriend have been long-term members of the Victims of Injustice, a group that advocates on behalf of land confiscation.

Since being arrested these two individuals have been plagued with violations of fair trial standards and have had prolonged periods of solitarily confinement. They have also been beaten repeatedly. As a result, we understand that Ms Hung is now deaf in one ear and Mr Doan has lost the use of one hand. The Vietnamese regime should be condemned in the strongest possible terms for this violation and treatment, and this abuse of the human rights of these unfairly jailed prisoners.

Minh Hanh's mother has noted that the Vietnamese communist regime is currently desperate to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership to advance their economy, and she hopes that before this particular matter occurs that her daughter and her friends, and all prisoners of conscience in Vietnam are released.

I wish to commend Mr Duy Quang Nguyen, the President of Bloc 8406 in Australia, for organising this particular conference. We have many—and I think it would be the same for the member for Gorton—constituents of Vietnamese background who worry very much about the rights of their families and loved ones in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government continues to abuse human rights, and I stand here in this parliament to condemn them for that abuse.