January 27, 2014
The Chairman of Viet Tan Mr. Do Hoang Diem was in Geneva on 20 January. Eight years after his first visit to Switzerland, he again met with the “Friends of Vietnam.”
In 2007, Mr. Do Hoang Diem, as the Chairman of Viet Tan, the main Vietnamese democratic opposition movement, made his first trip to Switzerland. Introduced by the Cosunam and by its network of members Thierry Oppikofer, Jean-Marc Comte, Bernard Favre, Rolin Wavre, Michel Rossetti and Pierre Marti, he was able at the time to meet with the activists and the persons in charge of the Genevan parties Christian Democrat, radical and liberal, which are references for an organization that is always looking for high quality allies to help in its struggle for democracy in Vietnam. Eight years later, if many of these persons in charge became decision-makers of the Genevan and Swiss political life at the highest level, the solidarity and the friendship still remain.
Therefore, the “Friends of Vietnam”, among whom the members of the Council of State Serge Dal Busco and François Longchamp, the members of the parliament Anne Marie Von Arx, Fredéric Hohl, Pierre Weiss and Simon Brandt went to the office of the parties in a friendly but nevertheless attentive atmosphere to listen to a presentation of the today situation in Vietnam, a country in which human rights violations are commonplace and repression on the dissidents is particularly severe.
As the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the United Nations of the situation regarding human rights in Vietnam is about to open in February 2014, Mr. Do Hoang Diem – in the lines of the peaceful struggle of Viet Tan – wanted to stretch out the situation in Vietnam and to call for support of the persons attending the meeting so as to establish a state governed by the rule of law and a decent civil society.
Nguyen Tang Luy
General Secretary
COSUNAM Swiss-Vietnam Committee
