Some examples of the films which were stopped by Vietnam:

Documentary 1: ELIMINATED WITHOUT BLEEDING

• Khmer Krom Federation

Documentary 2: HUNTED LIKE ANIMALS

• BBC journalist: I visited a group — military attacks by Vietnamese and Lao soldiers
• Attacked with chemical weapons
• Hunted and tortured — merciless!
• Hmong refugees: WE ARE NOT REBELS
• Hmong women: Surrendered & gang-raped by Lao soldiers
• Hmong refugee: Maichor's life before she escaped

Petition against interference at the unpfii

Please sign, circulate, and support.

New York, 22 May 2007

We would like to express our surprise and disbelief that the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the UN was able to stop two special side events upon request to the secretariat of the PFII.

One special event was organized by Earth Peoples, a network formed by Indigenous Peoples, individuals and organizations from around the world who volunteer to share information on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, co-sponsored by the NGO Committee on Human Right, a network of NGOs with ECOSOC status, and the Lao Human Rights Council, a membership organization of Hmong Lao.

The event was to be held during the 6th Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on the 22 of May, with the intent to screen the documentary “Hunted Like Animals”.

The film focuses on oral testimonies of severely traumatized victims of Hmong Lao refugees, who say that they fled from Vietnamese and Laotian military aggressions in Laos to Thailand. Further, the film shows violent and disturbing film footage filmed by the Hmong Lao in hiding themselves.

The second event was organized by the Khmer Krom Federation, a membership organization of Khmer Krom people from Vietnam.

The Khmer Krom side event was to be held on the 23rd of May, with the intent to screen the documentary “Eliminated Without Bleeding”.

The film focuses on oral testimonies of Khmer Krom people, who explain in detail how their culture, religion and way of life is oppressed by the Vietnamese government.

Both special side events intent was to raise awareness and to disseminate information on the human rights situation of the Hmong Lao people and the Khmer Krom people.

We would like to remind that one of the mandates of the Permanent Forum is the dissemination of Indigenous issues from around the world and the objective of side events is precisely to raise awareness to the members of the Forum, NGO’s, the media and to the states on situations related
to issues of concern to Indigenous Peoples.

The cancellation of both side events are in our view a grave violation of our freedom of expression, and hindered that the voices of human rights violation victims can be heard during the 6th Session of the PFII.

In this spirit, we strongly object against the cancellation caused by the Permanent Mission of Vietnam’s request to the secretariat of the PFII.

Signed,

Khmer Krom Federation
Earth Peoples
NGO Committee on Human Rights
Lao Human Rights Council