Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Pham, for your testimony. I have a two-pronged question so that may take up my time.
Mr. Pham, I heard of the long litany of human rights abuses and I wanted to refer to an article by Reuters, which is very current, May 11. I'll just quote from it:
Tom Malinowski said he had seen Vietnam show more restraint this year, with fewer political prisoners and no new dissident prosecutions, but gains were fragile and “very significant problems” remained.
“Vietnam has come a tremendous distance but there’s still some distance to go,” Malinowski, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told reporters after an annual human rights dialogue.
First, do you agree with Assistant Secretary of State Malinowski's statement that it's getting better?
Second, do you believe that the police are being directed by the Communist Party of Vietnam, or are they working independently in these abuses?