(Brussels) – Leaders of the European Union, Belgium, and Denmark should urge Vietnam to make concrete progress in improving its human rights record during Vietnamese President To Lam’s visit to Copenhagen and Brussels the week of October 19-24, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the prime ministers of Denmark and Belgium and, jointly with other groups, to the European Council and European Commission presidents, expressing concerns about Vietnam’s intensifying crackdown on human rights, which violates several obligations and commitments it made to the EU in a 2020 free trade agreement.
“The Vietnamese government has broken its pledges of reform and continues to crack down on basic freedoms,” said Patricia Gossman, senior associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “European leaders should communicate clearly and publicly to President To Lam that human rights and labor rights violations will no longer be tolerated.”
Human Rights Watch, in its letters, highlighted that the Vietnamese government has sharply intensified its repression of basic freedoms over the past 10 years. To Lam served as Vietnam’s minister of public security from 2016 to 2024—the head of its police force—and since then as general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party and later president.
On To Lam’s watch, Vietnamese police initiated a far-reaching crackdown that decimated the country’s civil society, stepped up transnational repression, and expanded the scope and use of draconian laws that criminalize the exercise of freedom of expression in contravention of Vietnam’s international human rights obligations.
Vietnam currently has at least 160 political prisoners imprisoned under draconian laws that violate their rights to free expression and peaceful activism for human rights and democracy. These include: Pham Doan Trang, a writer and human rights advocate; Can Thi Theu, a land rights activist; Pham Chi Dung and Nguyen Tuong Thuy, independent journalists; Hoang Duc Binh, a labor activist; and Le Dinh Luong, Nguyen Van Tuc, Tran Duc Thach, Tran Van Bang, and Nguyen Trung Ton, democracy campaigners.
During the first 9 months of 2026, Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 28 activists, including the prominent bloggers Hoang Thi Hong Thai and Huynh Ngoc Tuan, to long prison terms. Police arrested at least 39 other people for allegedly criticizing the government or being affiliated with disfavored religious or political groups.
The Vietnamese government has failed to implement legal reforms it pledged to undertake in its free trade and partnership agreements, including commitments to ratify International Labour Organization Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, and continues to thwart the establishment of independent trade unions.
Despite Vietnam’s failure to meet its pledges, the EU in January upgraded bilateral relations with Vietnam to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Concerns continue to be raised in yearly human rights dialogues that have largely failed to yield concrete results.
“The EU and its member states should stop giving Vietnam a free pass on repression,” Gossman said. “To Lam needs to hear loud and clear that unless his crackdown ends and reforms are adopted, there will be consequences for political and trade relations with Europe.”