American war veteran Andre Sauvageot (Photo: qdnd.vn)

(VOVworld) – American war veteran Andre Sauvageot says most Americans don’t believe the distortions about Vietnam. He made the statement during a recent interview with the People’s Army newspaper after learning that a group of people had gathered in Geneva to protest Vietnam’s presentation of the Universal Periodical Review Report on Human Rights.

Sauvageot said that with his 50-year experiences of Vietnam, he can confirm the Communist Party of Vietnam’s efforts to improve human rights and adopt policies to improve people’s living conditions and incomes, especially among ethnic minority groups. Vietnam has excellently upheld the people’s right to mastership and religious freedom, he said.

Based on these observations, Sauvageot disagreed with the opinions of people who he said, have no idea of the human rights situation in Vietnam.

Sauvageot said Vietnam, like other countries, needs to ensure its own security and political stability, so it should be no surprise that Vietnam places individual rights and freedom within a legal framework.

In response to a US request for Vietnam to revise its so-called ‘vague national security laws that are used to suppress universal rights’, Sauvageot said Americans should be more modest about human rights issues in general, its assessments, and ways of coping with threats to its security. In the US, many Americans have protested the way the US uses unmanned drones to attack those suspected of being terrorists, a technique that has unintentionally killed many innocent people.

Sauvageot concluded that the best solution is for both countries to make greater efforts to improve the human rights situation at home and not interfere in each others’ internal affairs.