UN urged to act on Vietnam over death penalty

The United Nations should immediately freeze anti-drug assistance to Vietnam after the communist country sentenced 30 people to die for drug-related offenses, three human rights groups working to get countries to abolish the death penalty said Wednesday.

The call from Harm Reduction International, Reprieve and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty cites the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s internal human rights guidance requiring the organization to stop funding for a country if it’s feared that such support may lead to people being executed.

Last month, a court in northern Vietnam sentenced 30 people to death last month for heroin trafficking, the largest number of defendants sentenced to death in a single trial in the country’s court history. The trial of each defendant lasted around a day. There are nearly 700 people on the death row in Vietnam, many of them for drugs.

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