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May 24th, 2016 
Awake Goy
US President Barack Obama announced on Monday that Washington would fully lift an embargo on sales of lethal arms to Vietnam, despite human rights organizations describing it as “among the world’s most repressive regimes.”
The decision to lift the arms trade ban, which followed intense debate within the Obama administration, suggested that US concerns about China’s assertiveness outweighed arguments that Vietnam had not done enough to improve its human rights record and that Washington would lose leverage for reforms.
The last annual report by NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Vietnam’s record remained “dire in all areas,” with the Communist Party allowing no challenge to its leadership, restricting basic rights such as freedom of speech and association, as well as imprisoning and assaulting activists and bloggers. Police regularly engage in torture, the justice system and all public institutions are controlled by the government, and the media and internet are censored.
“In short, Vietnam is a police state,” HRW said in a letter to Obama on May 19, urging him to raise human rights, meet dissidents and former political prisoners, and give speeches making clear that improved relations depended on improved human rights.
Responding to the lifting of the embargo, HRW Asia Division Deputy Director Phil Robertson was staunch in his criticism.
“As Obama was lifting the US arms embargo, the Vietnam authorities were busy arresting journalist Doan Trang and other human rights activists and bloggers on the street and in their houses. In one fell swoop, Obama has jettisoned what remained of US leverage to improve human rights in Vietnam — and basically gotten nothing for it,” he wrote in a statement on Monday.
In the commercial hub, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, Obama will on Tuesday meet entrepreneurs and tout a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal he has championed, in which Vietnam would be the biggest beneficiary of the 12 members.
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