In March 2015, the Director of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Inga Bostad, visited Vietnam for the first time. The Director met with several of the Vietnam Programme key partners during the visit.
Chuyen Nguyen Duc and Nga Hong Nguyen graduated from the Master Programme in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights in 2013 and 2014, respectively. They both received a scholarship from the Vietnam Programme which is provided to promising Vietnamese students.
Chuyen and Nga have now returned to Vietnam, and share some reflections from their studies in Norway.
On 12-14 January 2015, a group of 20 Vietnamese NGOs organised a workshop in Hanoi on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and implementation mechanisms. The workshop was supported by the Vietnam Programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.
Truong Thi Thuy Dung is one of 61 students graduated from the Master Programme in Human Rights Law at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi. The Master programme was established in 2010, as the first of its kind in Vietnam, and is supported by the Vietnam Programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR).
In 2013-2014, the Vietnam Programme supported a legal awareness project in Hue City in central Vietnam.
Students from the Law Faculty at Hue University have visited prisons and communities to raise legal awareness.
On 15 October 2014, the Director of the Vietnam Programme at the NCHR, Gisle Kvanvig, presented his paper “ASEAN, sovereignty and human rights” at the Third International Conference on Human Rights and Peace & Conflict in Southeast Asia.
The Vietnam Programme offers two Vietnamese students accepted into the Master of Philosophy in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights a monthly stipend for the duration of the course.
On August 25th 2014, new Vietnamese government regulations on police investigations came into effect.
- That government officials are now speaking openly on issues such as wrongful convictions is a step in the right direction, says Gisle Kvanvig, Director of the Vietnam Programme at the NCHR.
- The opportunity to do an internship with the Vietnam Program, and later write my master thesis on Vietnam, has given me an enhanced understanding of human rights in both theory and practice, says Frida Pareus, newly graduated master student at the NCHR.
In the first week of June, three officers from the Ministry of Public Security and four lecturers from the Peoples Police Academy in Hanoi visited Oslo and Lausanne. This was a first step towards possibly developing an expert group in Investigative Interviewing in Viet Nam.
The Vietnam Programme offers scholarships to individual Master students in Norway who are intending to complete a thesis.
Over the last two weeks the Vietnam Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Security in Vietnam, the Norwegian Police University College, and Oslo Police District has conducted training courses in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
The Vietnam Programme and Juss-Buss are aiding several universities in Vietnam in their development of free legal aid offered by law students.
For tredje år på rad har Vietnam Programmet ved SMR i samarbeid Ministry of Public Security i Vietnam med seg eksperter fra Polithøgskolen og Oslo Politidistrikt til Vietnam for å holde kurs om ”Investigative Interviewing and the Presumption of Innocence - undersøkende avhørsteknikk og uskyldspresumsjonen.”