Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Vietnamese counterpart on the (a) number of prisoners of conscience and (b) freedom of expression in that country.

The UK is concerned at restrictions on freedom of expression in Vietnam. We have regularly raised these issues at the United Nations and bilaterally with the Government of Vietnam.

We raised concerns about freedom of expression and assembly, the treatment of prisoners and the protection of civil society in Vietnam during Vietnam’s Universal Periodic Review in January 2019, and again in a UN Human Rights Council Item 2 Statement in March 2019.

Bilaterally, I raised freedom of expression at the UK-Vietnam High Level Political Dialogue in January 2019. Ahead of the Media Freedom Conference in July 2019, the UK will continue to raise media freedom with the Vietnamese government.

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