 |
| Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang attended the 52nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. |
Hostile, opportunistic, and reactionary forces have taken full advantage of existing problems in the country's construction and development, deepening limitations and shortcomings; downplaying achievements in national development, denying positive changes in people's lives; and accusing Vietnam of violating human rights in order to tarnish Vietnam's image in the international arena.
In that situation, foreign information work in general and foreign information on human rights in particular need to be promoted to effectively address current challenges.
Facing many challenges from outside
On October 11, 2022, at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Vietnam was elected for the second time as a member of the UN Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. This is an affirmation of achievements in ensuring and promoting human rights, and the international community's recognition and trust in Vietnam's prestige and commitments.
Actively informing the world about the policies of our Party and State; Vietnam's viewpoints and stances on regional and international issues; promoting the image of the country, its people, history, national culture, and achievements of the renovation process to a wide range of international friends is also creating a comprehensive picture of Vietnam in which people hold a central position.
In the 10 years of implementing the Strategy on external information work for the period 2011-2020, along with the general successes, external information work on human rights has also shown its marks in areas such as direction and orientation in information related to human rights; synchronous and close coordination between agencies and units in the direction, orientation and implementation of external information tasks on human rights; diverse methods of external information, suitable for different audiences, especially related to hot and complicated issues attracting the attention of public opinion at home and abroad; active participation of external resources in external information work on human rights; forecasting work is interested and focused.
Besides the above positive aspects, foreign information work on human rights is also revealing a number of problems, and is expected to face many challenges in the coming period.
Firstly , the awareness and professional qualifications of those working in the field of foreign information on human rights have not met the requirements for innovation and improvement of the quality and effectiveness of performing tasks. There is still a perception that human rights are a sensitive issue, so we only focus on the work of fighting and refuting, that is, the requirement of "fighting", but have not really emphasized the work of proactively informing, building trust, and creating favorable information flows for us, that is, the requirement of "building".
Second , the work of informing about issues related to human rights is still slow and passive in the face of information from foreign press. A typical example is when some social and environmental activists were prosecuted for tax evasion, the information work often followed the distorted and slanderous arguments from international organizations and media. The work of foreign information will then focus on fighting and refuting, and in reality, we cannot always easily resolve negative information flows, especially when it is spread quickly and widely in the cyberspace environment.
Third, foreign information products on achievements in ensuring human rights in Vietnam are still lacking in both quantity and multilingual books; the application of e-books in information and propaganda has not been well utilized. The digitization or construction of a database on human rights in Vietnam is currently scattered and not unified, so it has not created a basis for information activities.
Fourth , objective impacts from the international and regional situation, non-traditional security factors (such as epidemics, natural disasters, the growth and dominance of Internet and social media) also have direct impacts, posing difficulties for the work of ensuring human rights in general and foreign information work on human rights in particular.
Finally, and most worryingly, for many years, human rights has been an area in which Vietnam has always been under a lot of pressure from outside, including hostile and reactionary forces, countries, international organizations and individuals.
The United States is the country that publishes the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom every year, and although it has recently included more positive content about the religious situation in Vietnam, there are still some biased and biased comments.
Specifically, in the 2022 Report, it is stated that the Government restricts religious freedom for reasons of ensuring national security and social harmony, or that local authorities make it difficult to register religious activities, interfere in the activities of religious organizations, oppress and harass religious minorities, and arbitrarily arrest members of religious groups...
The EU also regularly expresses concerns about the human rights situation and press freedom in Vietnam. Most recently, in the “Press Release” of the EU Parliamentary Subcommittee on Human Rights, it stated “deep concern about the increasingly worsening human rights situation; concerns about forced labor and laws restricting freedom of religion and belief in Vietnam”.
In addition, international human rights organizations (HRW, CIVIVUS, CPJ, AI...), international media, mainly Vietnamese newspapers (BBC, VOA, RFA...) always have statements and articles distorting and slandering Vietnam on human rights issues; expressing support for law violators in Vietnam; attacking Vietnam's viewpoints and voices on international and regional issues, typically related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The above negative assessments and public opinions partly create a false perception among the domestic masses, harm political stability, national ideological security, as well as significantly affect Vietnam's reputation and image in the international arena.
Identifying the causes, which may stem from: (i) plots to sabotage and interfere in overthrowing; (ii) prejudices about Vietnam, not accepting access to information from official channels; (iii) limitations in accessing information from official channels; (iv) internal processing needs, political characteristics of the country.
 |
| Mr. Le Hai Binh, alternate member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Central Steering Committee for External Information Work, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, spoke at the training conference on external information work on human rights for officials of 13 provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta region, August 11, 2022. |
Take the initiative on the foreign information front
As a member of international conventions on human rights and a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Vietnam always strives to implement its commitments; at the same time, proactively cooperates with countries and international organizations in the field of human rights and has achieved many important achievements, of great significance in the cause of national construction as well as the realization of human rights in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the countries that actively participates, seriously implements, is open-minded and open-minded in international commitments on human rights.
In the coming period, especially from now until 2025, to further improve the quality and effectiveness of external information work on human rights, it is necessary to do well the following issues:
Firstly , improve forecasting and consulting capacity, strengthen coordination and information exchange. Inform and proactively clarify complicated and sensitive cases related to national security, religion, rural security, handling of subjects violating national security, etc.; in which, promptly orient public opinion with official information and develop appropriate communication plans, not creating loopholes for hostile forces to exploit and sabotage; make strong arguments to refute information distorting the case. Competent agencies have specific instructions for agencies, units, and the press to pay attention to information about "hot" and sensitive cases related to national security.
Second, promote the spirit of proactive attack, build and implement the Project to propagate Vietnam's achievements in religion, ethnicity, democracy, human rights; Vietnam's priorities and initiatives during its term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term.
Third, fully promote the role of agencies and units specializing in human rights work in implementing foreign information tasks.
Specifically, relevant ministries, branches and units actively participate in preparing assigned content in the fields of democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Internet freedom, building and maintaining a reporting regime to provide information to protect Vietnam's national reports under the universal periodic review (UPR) mechanism, international conventions on human rights that Vietnam participates in, human rights dialogue sessions, international forums and conferences.
From there, we will seek and mobilize countries and international organizations to have more balanced and positive opinions about Vietnam and have goodwill to recognize the great principles and respect our political system.
 |
| Foreign information work in general and foreign information on human rights in particular need to be promoted to effectively address current challenges. |
Fourth , continue to diversify methods of propaganda and foreign information. Increase the proportion of media products in ethnic and foreign languages and build a digital database on human rights in Vietnam.
Promote the exploitation of accounts and information channels on social networks, targeting young people; connect and leverage the influence of prestigious people in society and internationally. Regarding information locations, focus on countries and regions with a large Vietnamese population; countries that are prioritized for developing foreign relations with Vietnam and countries that are headquarters of international human rights organizations.
Fifth , focus on training and improving knowledge about human rights and communication skills about human rights for officials at all levels. The press and media play an important role, being the leading force in foreign information about human rights, but can also violate human rights due to many different reasons such as violating privacy, unselective information, focusing on negative aspects...
Enhance the initiative in foreign propaganda and information, gain an advantage on the media front. Research and determine the appropriate dosage, time, and timing of information and propaganda, for example, focusing on the times before and during events that demonstrate Vietnam's role and responsibility in participating in and handling human rights issues or international human rights documents; the time when some countries and international human rights organizations research and develop reports related to human rights; the time when subjects of international "interest" are tried, creating a mainstream, positive information flow that takes the leading position.
The 13th National Congress of the Party continued to supplement and develop new awareness of human rights in the new era. It is a period of promoting all domestic and foreign activities to realize the aspiration of building a developed and powerful Vietnam. In which "The people are the center, the subject of the renovation, construction and protection of the Fatherland; all guidelines and policies must truly originate from the lives, aspirations, rights and legitimate interests of the people, taking the happiness and prosperity of the people as the goal to strive for".
That is the vision and development orientation of our country, and also the affirmation of pursuing the goals of human rights. Therefore, foreign information work needs to maintain its “pioneering” role, maintain the goals set by the Party, improve the effectiveness of foreign information and propaganda on human rights, and attract and further expand the international public opinion front supporting Vietnam.
* Alternate member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department.
Source
Comment (0)