Dienstag, 27. Mai 2014

Vietnam boat sinks after collision with Chinese vessel

A Vietnamese fishing boat has sunk after it 

collided with a Chinese vessel near a 

controversial oil rig in the South China Sea, 

amid tensions between the two nations.


read more

Samstag, 24. Mai 2014

China Must Respect International Law and Remove HD-981 Oil Rig from Vietnam’s Waters

  • The Association of Vietnamese Students and Professionals in the United States of America

  • Petition of
    MA



  • In the past few years, China has escalated tensions in the Southeast Asia Sea (South China Sea) by introducing the infamous nine-dotted line which claims sovereignty over 80% of the Southeast Asia Sea and which has zero legal basis, ignoring all relevant international law, norms, and conventions. 

    The Chinese activities pose a real threat to the territorial waters of the countries in the region as well as to maritime security and the freedom of navigation.

    read more and sign

    Freitag, 23. Mai 2014

    Vietnamesin protestiert gegen China mit Selbstverbrennung

    Als Teil der antichinesischen Massenproteste in Vietnam hat sich eine Vietnamesin am Freitag in Ho-Chi-Minh-Stadt selbst verbrannt.

    Wie staatliche vietnamesische Medien berichteten, übergoss sich die 67-jährige Le Thi Tuyet Mai vor dem Wiedervereinigungspalast mit Benzin und zündete sich an. Wachleute löschten das Feuer nach drei Minuten, doch für die Frau kam jede Hilfe zu spät.

    Quelle

    Buddhist Youth Leader Lê Thi Tuyêt Mai dies after self-immolation in Ho Chi Minh City

    Buddhist Youth Leader Lê Thi Tuyêt Mai dies after self-immolation in Ho Chi Minh City

    Posted by 
    PARIS, 23.05.2014 (IBIB) – The International Buddhist Information Bureau in Paris has received further news about Ms. Lê Thị Tuyết Mai, member of the Buddhist Youth Movement. She died today after immolating herself outside the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) at 5.30 this morning (Vietnam time). Le Thi Tuyet Mai, 47, Buddhist name Dong Xuan, was Deputy head of the Executive Committee of the Buddhist Youth Movement in ho Chi Minh City. The BYM is an educational youth movement affiliated of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam
    Beside her body was a 5-liter jerrycan of petrol, a lighter and several banners. The banners were inscribed: 

    “Homage to the Goddess of Compassion” – “The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam will survive side by side with the Vietnamese people” – “All together against Chinese invasion” – “I offer my body as a torch to light the path of all patriots” – “Support the Declaration of UBCC Patriarch Thich Quang Do to oppose China’s invasion of Vietnamese waters and lands”.

    Aus Protest gegen Gewässer StreitFrau in Vietnam zündet sich selbst an

    Erneut eine Selbstverbrennung in Vietnam
    -------------------------------------
    Nachricht von www.n-tv.de
    In Vietnam hat sich eine Frau Medienberichten zufolge selbst angezündet. Neben der Leiche der 67-Jährigen vor dem Wiedervereinigungspalast in Ho-Chi-Minh-Stadt sei eine handschriftliche Notiz mit anti-chinesischen Slogans gefunden worden, berichtete die Zeitung "Tuoi Tre" unter Berufung auf Behördenangaben. Darin hieß es demnach, China solle Vietnams Gewässer verlassen und das vietnamesische Volk sich gegen eine chinesische Invasion vereinen.

    25 YEARS AFTER TIANANMEN ASK PRESIDENT XI JINPING TO IMPLEMENT CHINA’S CONSTITUTION !

    Please sign this petition
    Thanks.


    Freitag, 16. Mai 2014

    A super power without allies


    The Vietnamese National Assembly in June 2012 passed the Law of the Sea. Just ask China if there is any littoral state on earth is going without law of the sea. While the Chinese have not issued a law of the sea, they make do by seven other acts to dominate and to maintain their territory at sea, including Maritime Law, Basic Line Law, Ocean Law, etc. So Vietnam adopts the Law of the Sea is “exactly like when you own a house with a garden, and you have to fence the garden”, explained General Le Van Cuong.

    a super power without allies

    Sonntag, 11. Mai 2014

    DECLARATION

    OF VIETNAMESE ORGANIZATIONS ALL OVER THE WORLD
    RE. THE CHINESE HAIYANG 981 RIG IN VIETNAM'S WATERS
               
    On May 3, 2014, the Chinese government announced the introduction of a giant exploratory rig, Haiyang 981, into Vietnam's waters (15o29' N/110o12' E, corresponding to Lot 143 of Vietnam's EEZ) with the intention of searching for oil and gas in the continental shelf of Vietnam, well within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of Vietnam, as defined by UNCLOS (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).  It further warned all foreign vessels not to come within three nautical miles of the rig.  Peking also sent an armada of some 80 ships, seven of which are destroyers, down to the area to prevent Vietnam from exercising its sovereignty in the area.  

    All of the above was done unilaterally in an attempt to impose its nine-dash claim of sovereignty over more than 80 percent of the Southeast Asian Sea, a claim never acknowledged by UNCLOS and considered totally illegal by the rest of the world.

    This being "provocative and unhelpful to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region" (Jen Psaki at the State Department, May 7, 2014), public opinion both inside Vietnam and in the world is outraged at this latest hegemonistic "sea" grab by China.

    WE, THE FOLLOWING VIETNAMESE ORGANIZATIONS IN THE WORLD, HEREBY DECLARE:

    - One, that we condemn in the most vigorous terms this most recent and blatant act of aggression by the People's Republic of China, another step in China's dangerous game of toying with war in a fast developing region which has known peace for more than a quarter century.

    - Two, that we join the vast majority of the 90 million Vietnamese inside Vietnam in demanding an immediate withdrawal of the giant Haiyang 981 rig from the waters of Vietnam; at the same time, we condemn Hanoi for its spineless policy regarding the Southeast Asian Sea, which allowed for China's predatory moves.

    - Three, that we demand an immediate stop to the repression and arrest of democracy activists and the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience currently in jail because of their opposition to the expansionist policies of Beijing.

    - Four, that we urge that a suit be brought against China in international courts (including the International Court of the Hague and the Hamburg International Court on the Law of the Sea) for its acts of aggression against Vietnam regarding Vietnamese property in the Southeast Asian Sea.

    - Five, that we appeal to the solidarity of ASEAN in the upcoming talks with China on transforming the DOC (Declaration of Conduct) into a COC (Code of Conduct) in the Southeast Asian Sea in view of securing peace and stability in the region.

    - Six, that we appeal to world public opinion in condemning in no uncertain terms the hegemonistic ambitions of China as it tries to make the Southeast Asian Sea with its immense resources into an "internal sea" of China.  At the same time, we thank all countries, and in particular the United States of America, for speaking up on behalf not only of Vietnam but also of international peace and security, including threats to the freedom of navigation in the Southeast Asian Sea.

    Only such a concerted effort could possibly stay the hands of China and its over-ambitious land and sea grabs in the defense of world peace.

    Done on this 11th day of May Two Thousand and Fourteen

    VIETNAMESE ORGANIZATIONS
    SIGNING ON TO THIS DECLARATION:

    1. Alliance for Democracy in Vietnam (Mr. Nguyen Quoc Nam, Vice Chairman)

    2. Assembly of Vietnamese Democrats (Mr. Lam Dang Chau, Representative, Coordinating Committee)

    3. Center for Human Rights in Vietnam (Attorney Tran Thanh Hiep, Director)

    4. Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers (Mr. Nguyen Van Tanh, Chairman)

    5. Federation of Free Vietnamese Labor (Mr. Tran Ngoc Thanh, Chairman)

    6. The Federation of Technical Strategic Directorate Associations (Mr. Doan Huu Dinh, President)

    7. For the Vietnamese People Party (Mr. Nguyen Cong Bang, Chairman)

    8. International Institute for Vietnam (Professor Doan Viet Hoat, Director)

    9. The People's Force to Save Vietnam (Mr. Tran Quoc Bao, Chairman)

    10. National Resurgence Force (Ms. Bui Anh Thu, Spokesperson)

    11. NCVA (National Congress of Vietnamese Americans) (Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Chairman)

    12. Overseas Vietnamese Laity Movement (Mr. Do Nhu Dien, Coordinator)

    13. The People's Democratic Party of Vietnam (Mr. Do Thanh Cong, Spokesperson)

    14. The Rally for Democracy (Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan, M.D., Representative)

    15. The United Workers and Farmers Organization of Vietnam (Ms. Nguyen Mai, Viet Nam, and Mr. Truong Quoc Viet, Australia - Co-spokespersons)

    16. Viet Tan Revolutionary Party (Mr. Do Hoang Diem, Chairman)

    17. Vietnam Human Rights Network (Dr. Nguyen Ba Tung, Chairman)

    18. Vietnam Nationalist Party, Central Coordinating Council of Overseas Chapters (Mr. Tran Tu Thanh, Chairman)

    19. Vietnamese Community of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia (Mr. Doan Huu Dinh, Chairman)

    20. Vietnamese Women for Human Rights (Ms. Lanney Tran, Chairperson)





    Zusammen in Deutschland /Ausstellung in Weißenfels



    Samstag, 10. Mai 2014

    Tensions increase between Vietnam and China over oil rig


    Vietnamese anger toward China is running at its highest level in years after Beijing deployed an oil rig in disputed waters as naval ships from both countries engage in a tense standoff near the rig off the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

    read more

    Freitag, 9. Mai 2014

    Stellungnahme des Forum Vietnam21 gegen chinessiche Agression

    Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

    Sie stellen mit Recht die Frage, warum wir uns, Vietnamesen in der Bundesrepublik, hier in Frankfurt vor dem Konsulat der Volksrepublik China, versammeln

    WORUM GEHT ES?
    Es geht um die Aggressionspolitik Chinas gegen Vietnam, um die Vorherrschaft Chinas im Ostasiatischen Meer und um Konflikte um kleine Inselgruppen zwischen China und Vietnam und anderen Nachbarländern Philippinen, Malaysia und Taiwan.

    Chinas Haltung dabei ist höchst militant-aggressiv. Ganz aktuell hat China am 02.05.2014 eine Bohrinsel mit bewaffneter Begleitung ins vietnamesische Hoheitsgewässer  geschleppt. Vietnam  hat daraufhin Küstenwachboote eingesetzt, um die völkerrechtswidrige Verankerung der Ölplattform zu verhindern und die eigene Fischerei zu schützen. Die chinesischen Schlepper haben am 07.05.2014 vietnamesische Boote gerammt, mit Feuerlöschkanonen auf sie geschossen. Vier Vietnamesen wurden verletzt, zwei fielen.
    China tritt bereits seit 40 Jahren als Aggressor auf. So kam es 1974 zu heftigen Seeschlachten zwischen China und Vietnam. China hat am Ende den Seekrieg gewonnen und hält seither die Paracel-Inseln besetzt. Auch 1988 kam es erneut zu einem Seegefecht zwischen China und Vietnam.Zwei vietnamesische Kriegsschiffe wurden von der chinesischen Marine versenkt. 70 vietnamesische Soldaten fielen. China besetzt seither neben den Paracel-Inseln auch zehn Inseln der Spratly-Gruppe.

    Wir rufen daher auf, dem imperialistischen Treiben Chinas Einhalt zu gebieten. 
                                 
    • China soll seine kriegerischen Akte gegen Vietnam beenden.
    • China soll unverzüglich seine Aggressivität und militärische Drohungen gegen die Nachbarländer beenden

    • Obwohl China schon seit jeher eine multinationale Lösung für den Konflikt ablehnt, sollen  China und andere Konfliktparteien unter Einbeziehung der ASEAN-Länder und der internationalen Gemeinschaft an einer friedlichen Konfliktlösung arbeiten.

    • Basis dazu ist das  Seerechtsübereinkommen der Vereinten Nationen (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UNCLOS), dem China selbst 1996 beigetreten ist.

    • China soll überzeugt werden, dass eine friedliche Reglung besser, profitabler ist als jede militärische Maßnahme.

    • Wir verlangen von der Regierung in Hanoi ihre zaghafte Haltung gegenüber China aufzugeben und entschieden gegen die chinesische Aggression vorzugehen. Hanoi muss mit allen friedlichen Mitteln versuchen, die Pekinger Machthaber zu einer multinationalen Lösung des Konflikt zu bewegen.

    • Hanoi darf nicht gegen antichinesische Demonstrationen im eigenen Land vorgehen. Vietnamesische Bürger sollen friedlich gegen China protestieren dürfen - ohne Gefahr von der eigenen Regierung misshandelt und verhaftet zu werden, wie es in den letzten Jahren vielfach geschehen ist.

    Bitte unterstützen Sie unsere Forderungen. Damit helfen Sie den Frieden nicht nur in Asien sondern in der ganzen Welt zu wahren.

    Bundesrepublik Deutschland, den 10.05.2014


    „Forum Vietnam 21 – Sektion Deutschland“

    Donnerstag, 8. Mai 2014

    China stellt Vietnam auf eine harte Probe

    von: "deutsche Welle"

    Im südchinesischen Meer kam es zu Zusammenstößen zwischen chinesischen und vietnamesischen Schiffen. Die ohnehin komplizierten Beziehungen beider Länder erreichen damit einen historischen Tiefstand.

    read more

    Vietnam: Erneut zwei bekannte Blogger verhaftet

    Vietnam: Erneut zwei bekannte Blogger verhaftet



    Nicht mal einen Monat ist es her, dass ich über die Verurteilung des vietnamesischen Bloggers Pham Viet Dao schrieb. 
    Nun wurden wieder zwei bekannte Blogger in Vietnam verhaftet, und wieder lautet der Vorwurf “Missbrauch demokratischer Freiheiten”. 
    Nguyen Huu Vinh und dessen Mitarbeiter Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy sollen “üble Inhalte und falsche Informationen verbreitet haben, die das Ansehen und Vertrauen in staatliche Institutionen vermindert haben”. Grundlage für die Festnahme ist wieder Artikel 258 des Strafgesetzbuches, der “Missbrauch demokratischer Freiheiten gegen das Staatsinteresse”, der mit bis zu sieben Jahren Haft geahndet werden kann. 
    Lucie Morillon von den Reportern ohne Grenzen sieht hier eine negative Entwicklung in Vietnam:

    Mittwoch, 7. Mai 2014

    Vietnam Zwei regierungskritische Blogger festgenommen

    (ap) Erneut haben die Behörden in Vietnam zwei bekannte regierungskritische Blogger verhaftet. Den Angaben zufolge wurde Nguyen Huu Vinh und Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy am Montag in der Hauptstadt Hanoi festgenommen. Ihnen wird Verstoß gegen den Artikel 258 vorgeworfen, was mit bis zu sieben Jahren Haft bestraft werden kann.

    read more (Newsticker der "Neue Zürcher Zeitung"

    TOP NEWS U.S. criticizes Chinese oil rig move amid Vietnam protests

    Tue, May 06 16:59 PM EDT

    By Greg Torode

    HONG KONG (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday sharply criticized the movement of a huge Chinese oil rig that Vietnam says has entered its waters, the latest show of Beijing's growing assertiveness to raise alarm among smaller countries in the region.
    The Vietnamese accusation came days after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Asia to underline his commitment to allies there, including Japan and the Philippines who are themselves locked in territorial disputes with China.

    Obama, promoting a strategic "pivot" toward the Asia-Pacific region, also visited South Korea and Malaysia, but not China.

    Vietnam has condemned the operation of the deepwater drilling rig in what it says are its waters in the South China Sea, and told China's state-run oil company to remove it.
    In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters: "Given the recent history of tensions in the South China Sea, China's decision to operate its oil rig in disputed waters is provocative and unhelpful to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region."

    "These events point to the need for claimants to clarify their claims in accordance with international law, and reach an agreement ... about what types of activities should be permissible within disputed areas," she added.

    Vietnam also protested the move.

    read more (news of Reuter)


    Dienstag, 6. Mai 2014

    Triebwerk eines Airbus explodiert Sekunden vor Start

    Dramatischer Zwischenfall in Melbourne: Der Airbus A330 der Vietnam Airlines ist vermutlich nur knapp einer Katastrophe entgangen. Auf der Startbahn brannten Trümmer.

    Hamburger Abendblatt

    Donnerstag, 1. Mai 2014

    Reporter without Borders


    For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders is publishing a list of profiles of “100 information heroes” for World Press Freedom Day (3 May).

    Among them there are three vietnameses

    LE NGOC THANH

    Vietnam / Asia-Pacific

    Anton le Ngoc Thanh is a journalist and a Catholic priest. His work for Vietnam Redemporist News, a Catholic news organization for which he has worked since the 1990s, has caused him numerous problems with the Vietnamese authorities. 

    In 2012 he was stopped for questioning on his way to Bac Lieu in the south of the country, where a woman had set fire to herself in protest against her daughter, the blogger Ta Phong Tan, being put on trial. 

    He was held for several hours for causing a traffic accident while travelling on foot. He was arrested again last year during a demonstration in support of the blogger and activist Dinh Nhat Uy, convicted for organizing a campaign for the release of his jailed younger brother. Thanh is under constant police surveillance and is frequently prevented from covering and publicizing the human rights abuses that he has witnessed.

    PHAM CHI DUNG

    Vietnam / Asia-Pacific

    Like others who have seen nomenklatura corruption up close, Pham Chi Dung returned his party card. Instead he devoted himself to writing and developing a critique of Vietnam’s political class, which he knows inside out. He was a military officer for many years and was an aide to Truong Tan Sang in Ho Chin Minh City before Sang became president in 2011. 

    He has written about public security and the dominant cultural, economic and religious ideology. He was arrested on charges of “conspiring to overthrow the government” and “anti-government propaganda” in July 2012 in connection with articles about corruption and the government’s shortcomings, but the investigation was abandoned and he was released seven months later. 

    His PhD in economics, his 11 books and his many interviews for the BBC, RFI and Radio Free Asia still do not protect him. His passport was confiscated as he was about to board a flight to Geneva in February 2014 to attend a conference on rights and freedoms in Vietnam.

    TRUONG DUY NHAT

    Vietnam / Asia-Pacific

    After starting out as a reporter for regional police publications, Truong Duy Nhat worked for the daily Dai Doan Ket (Great Solidarity). But he resigned as a state media journalist in 2010 to become a prolific and outspoken blogger, calling his blog – originally truongduynhat.vn and then, a year later, truongduynhat.org – “Another point of view.” 

    He posted more than 1,000 articles, most of them his own, in the space of three years. After four orders to close his blogs, he was finally arrested in May 2013 and sentenced to two years in prison in connection with 12 of his most vitriolic articles. 

    Seven months before his arrest, he wrote: ““I am neither a criminal nor a reactionary. The handcuff and gun should not be used against bloggers who sacrifice their interests to keep outspoken blogs that are helping to change the party and the people.”



    Demonstration gegen die Regierung in Saigon am 29.04.2014

    Trotz Drohungen gingen die Menschen auf die Straße, anlässlich des 39.Jahrestages der gewaltsamen Niederwerfung Südvietnams.

    click here