A prominent human rights activist has submitted a testimony to a US Congressional House of Foreign Affairs subcommittee highlighting the extreme poverty faced by ethnic minorities in Vietnam.

Below is press release issued by the Leadership Council for Human Rights:

Leadership Council for Human Rights President Kathryn Cameron Porter delivered testimony Tuesday [06 November 2007] at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on human rights in Vietnam.  The hearing was held by the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight.

Porter, focusing on the plight of indigenous ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, presented grim photographs taken during a recent LCHR fact-finding mission that captured the extreme poverty there.  “When we examine human rights, we must first consider the quality of life issues upon which all fundamental freedoms depend,” Porter said in testimony submitted for the record. “The first right is basic survival; the ability to provide for one’s own elemental needs and those of one’s family.”

She also emphasized the need for expanded dialogue between American and Vietnamese leaders.  Mentioning a recent LCHR-hosted NGO roundtable with a delegation from Vietnam’s newly-elected National Assembly, Porter urged Members of Congress to hold similar exchanges to help promote reform.  “I believe you all hold a key to this,” Porter told Subcommittee Chairman William Delahunt and his colleagues, adding, “out of dialogue comes discourse.”  

Porter spoke on a diverse panel of experts that included Cong Thanh Do, the spokesman for the People’s Democratic Party; Sophie Richardson, the advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia Program; Duy (Dan) Hoang of the Vietnam Reform Party; and Nguyen Dinh Thang, the executive director of Boat People SOS.  In the preceding panel, Scot Marciel, the deputy assistant secretary for Southeast Asia, addressed Congressional concern regarding the recent removal of Vietnam’s designation as a country of particular concern (CPC) for violations of religious freedom. 

Delahunt was joined on the dais by subcommittee members Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Rep. Ed Royce.  Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and Rep. Christopher Smith, meanwhile, served as witnesses, sharing their expertise on the issue in the hearing’s first panel.

(Source: Leadership Council for Human Rights)