Vietnam's arrest of reformist labor official could disturb bid for better trade terms with the US

BANGKOK (AP) — A senior Vietnamese official with the country’s labor ministry was arrested for "deliberately disclosing state secrets,” police announced on Thursday, a development that analysts say could hurt Vietnam’s efforts to obtain more favorable trade terms for exports to the United States.

There were no further details about lawyer Nguyen Van Binh's arrest — beyond the announcement on the website of the police in the capital of Hanoi — but rights activists allege he was detained because he supported the idea of independent trade unions, banned under the Communist government.

They also say it’s a sign of continuing repression, which was previously directed mainly toward bloggers, environmentalists and civil society groups.

Binh who headed the Legal Affairs Department at the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, could face between two and 15 years in prison for disclosing state secrets under the law in this single-party, authoritarian state.

A brief profile of Binh on a website of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last year said the 51-year-old lawyer has also worked for the U.N.'s International Labor Organization.

His arrest was first reported earlier this week by The 88 Project, a small multinational organization that monitors and promotes human rights and civil liberties in Vietnam. It described Binh as a reformer who supported independent trade unions.

“Binh’s arrest comes amid a new wave of repression in Vietnam," the group said in its report, dated Monday. It said Binh's arrest was “the first arrest of a government reformer in recent years.”

The 88 Project in February published what it described as a secret 2023 national security directive of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party ordering a crackdown on labor groups, civil society, and foreign organizations deemed a threat to national security.

Binh had been leading efforts to ratify the U.N. International Labor Organization Convention 87, which, if passed, would guarantee workers the right to form independent trade unions without prior authorization, the group said.

The issue of labor reform is important to Vietnam for economic reasons.

Last September, when President Biden visited Vietnam, Washington and Hanoi elevated their relationship to the highest diplomatic level of “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” Analysts said it reflected the U.S. desire to have Vietnam as an ally against rival superpower China.

However, Vietnam remains on a list of 12 nations, including China and Russia, classified by the U.S. as non-market economies, substantially directed by the state.

At about the same time as Biden’s visit, Vietnam requested that the U.S. Commerce Department make a determination of whether Vietnam could be officially qualified as a market economy, which potentially could lower tariffs on its exports to the U.S., its biggest market.

The Commerce Department on Wednesday held a public hearing about the upgrade and is expected to complete its review in July. Although its determination is supposed to be made according to strictly economic criteria, an open-ended category allows matters such as labor rights to be taken into consideration, which could weigh against a change to market economy status.

Vietnam claims that its labor laws are in line with international standards, including having wages determined by free bargaining between workers and employers.

The U.S. State Department and rights groups say that is not the case.

“It’s patently false to claim that Vietnamese workers can organize unions or that their wages are the result of free bargaining between labor and management,” John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

“Not a single independent union exists in Vietnam and no working legal frameworks exist for unions to be created or for workers to enforce labor rights,” he added.

An upgraded trade status is also symbolically important for Vietnam’s government, said Murray Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Vietnam officials see the U.S. continued classification of Vietnam under a “non-market status an insult and bewildering, considering how important Vietnam is to the U.S. as a trading and investment partner," Hiebert said.

“Hanoi also finds it insulting to be included in a grouping of 12 countries that includes China, Russia and countries formerly associated with the Soviet Union,” Hiebert said in an email to The Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment.

FILE - US President Joe Biden addresses the media during a press briefing at the headquarter of CPV Central Committee in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sept.10, 2023. Police in Vietnam announced Thursday May 9, 2024 that they have arrested a senior official of the country’s labor ministry for "deliberately disclosing state secrets.” The arrest alarms human rights and labor activists who believe it is a sign of continuing repression, which has previously been directed especially at bloggers and civil society groups. As such, it could also could hurt Vietnam’s efforts to obtain more favorable trade terms for its exports to the United States, which are currently being reviewed in Washington. (Luong Thai Linh/Pool Photo via AP, File)

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faced a hearing Monday in the High Court in London that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges, or could provide him another chance to appeal his extradition.

The outcome will depend on how much weight judges give to assurances U.S. officials have provided that Assange’s rights won’t be trampled if he goes on trial.

In March, two judges rejected the bulk of Assange's arguments but said he could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.

The court said that if Assange, who is an Australian citizen, couldn’t rely on the First Amendment then it was arguable his extradition would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which also provides free speech and media protections.

The U.S. has provided those reassurances, though Assange's legal team and supporters argue they are not good enough to rely on to send him to the U.S. federal court system.

The U.S. said Assange could seek to rely on the rights and protections of the First Amendment but that a decision on that would ultimately be up to a judge. In the past, the U.S. said it would argue at trial that Assange is not entitled to the constitutional protection because he is not a U.S. citizen.

“The U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited,” his wife, Stella Assange, said. "The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism.”

Assange, 52, has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago. American prosecutors allege that Assange encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published.

Commuters emerging from a Tube stop near the courthouse couldn’t miss a large sign bearing Assange’s photo and the words, “Publishing is not a crime. War crimes are.” Scores of supporters gathered outside the neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice chanting “Free Julian Assange” and “Press freedom, Assange freedom.”

Some held a large white banner aimed at President Joe Biden, exhorting: “Let him go Joe.”

Assange's lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said any sentence would likely be much shorter.

Assange’s family and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, which includes seven years spent inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 until 2019. He has spent the past five years in a British high-security prison.

Assange’s lawyers argued in February that he was a journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending him to the U.S., they said, would expose him to a politically motivated prosecution and risk a “flagrant denial of justice.”

The U.S. government says Assange's actions went way beyond those of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents.

If Assange prevails Monday, it would set the stage for an appeal process likely to extend what has already been a long legal saga.

If the court accepts the word of the U.S., it would mark the end of Assange’s legal challenges in the U.K., though it’s unclear what would immediately follow.

His legal team is prepared to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene. But his supporters fear Assange could be transferred before the court in Strasbourg, France, could halt his removal.

Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson may also postpone issuing a decision.

If Assange loses in court, he still may have another shot at freedom.

Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials provided no other details but Stella Assange said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.

FILE - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being taken from court, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London, Wednesday May 1, 2019. Assange faces what could be his final court hearing in England over whether he should be extradited to the United States to face spying charges. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

London court to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Assange is extradited to the US

London court to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Assange is extradited to the US