- Imprisoned Vietnamese environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach recently received a distinguished international award, the Baldwin Medal of Liberty, honoring his human rights work.
- Bach, the co-founder and director of Vietnam’s first public interest legal organization, is serving a five-year sentence; he is one of five high-profile environmentalists arrested and imprisoned for tax evasion in Vietnam since mid-2021.
- On July 18, the U.N. Human Rights Committee published its findings on the fourth periodic review of Vietnam, expressing serious concerns over the treatment of political prisoners and increased restrictions on freedoms of association and expression and on independent civil society organizations.
On the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment, Vietnamese environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach, who was sentenced to five years on tax evasion charges, has been recognized with a prestigious international award.
The 46-year-old was officially presented the Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty in July by the president of the U.S.-based organization Human Rights First.
The prize, which honors those who “champion human rights despite immense personal risk,” was accepted by Bach’s wife on his behalf in an online ceremony.
The distinguished public interest lawyer had been chosen by an independent jury “in recognition of his lifetime commitment to protecting communities in Vietnam from the harmful effects of pollution and the climate crisis,” Human Rights First president Uzra Zeya said.
According to Zeya, Bach’s detention has been marked by “rampant human rights violations,” including reports he had been beaten and mistreated. Bach has also undertaken several hunger strikes.
On July 18, the U.N. Human Rights Committee published its findings on the fourth periodic review of Vietnam as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, expressing serious concerns over the treatment of political prisoners and increased restrictions on freedoms of association and expression and on independent civil society organizations, among other issues.
The four-year anniversary of Bach’s arrest sparked renewed calls from organizations around the world for his urgent and unconditional release, with Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Asia Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders and Vietnam Climate Defenders Coalition among those issuing statements.
The U.N. Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found Bach’s detention to be arbitrary and expressed concern about a “systemic problem” in Vietnam with the arbitrary detention of environmental and human rights defenders.
Presenting the award, Zeya described the charges against Bach as “spurious” and Vietnam’s tax laws “ambiguous.”
“In recent years, Vietnam has seen a wave of such arrests and prosecutions against environmental advocates,” she said.
An “unwavering commitment”
The co-founder and director of Vietnam’s first public interest legal organization, Bach trained more than 100 lawyers and inspired numerous young people to volunteer in the wake of storms and other environmental disasters, his NGO colleagues said.
His unwavering commitment to justice and a sustainable future, even from prison, has continued to inspire people both inside and outside Vietnam, they said.
Cases taken up by the organization Bach founded, Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Centre (LPSD), have included legal support for communities suffering the effects of the illegal dumping of expired pesticides, communities impacted by coal plant pollution and those resettled or affected by hydroelectric dam projects.
Bach also worked on laws to reduce plastics and ban asbestos and helped trigger a review of Vietnam’s environmental protection legislation.
However, it was his clean energy campaigning in 2021, which included 17 days of action against coal, which apparently prompted a crackdown that saw the lawyer’s arrest.
On June 24, 2021, when his young son was just 2 weeks old, he was taken from his home in Hanoi by police and held incommunicado until a closed-door January 2022 trial.
Bach was just one of five high-profile environmentalists arrested and imprisoned for tax evasion in Vietnam since mid-2021, including two arrested the same day as Bach and 2018 Goldman Prize winner Nguy Thi Khanh, who was arrested six months later. A sixth environmentalist, Ngo Thi To Nhien, was arrested on charges of misusing state documents in September 2023, and like Bach, remains in jail.
According to the NGO International Rivers, all six belonged to the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance, whose work had helped open the door to a clean energy financing deal for Vietnam with a group of G7 nations.
But by December 2022, when the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) was signed, four of the activists who helped pave the way for it were in jail.
The organizations they were running have all been shut down.
Through his softly spoken wife, Tran Phuong Thao, Bach accepted the Baldwin medal “with a profound sense of humility” and “on behalf of all the voices that were not heard, all the faces that were not seen, who left this world without seeing our rights restored.”
In her own speech for the occasion, Thao pointed to the need for international pressure on Vietnamese authorities.
“We need to call on global leaders to give serious consideration to transparency, accountability and access to justice as essential to the success of all projects to help the people of Vietnam,” she said.
Banner image: Imprisoned Vietnamese environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach. Image courtesy of Dang Dinh Bach (Vietnam Climate Defenders Coalition).
