AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public Statement
AI Index: ASA 41/004/2007 (Public)
News Service No: 081
24 April 2007
Viet Nam: Silenced critics must be released
Vietnamese lawyers, trade unionists, religious leaders and Internet dissidents have been detained or imprisoned in increasing numbers in recent months. Amnesty International is deeply concerned over an ongoing crackdown by the Vietnamese government against people who have done nothing but peacefully express their opinions.
On 30 April, "Liberation Day", the Vietnamese government marks the anniversary of the end of the Viet Nam war by releasing a number of prisoners. For 30 April 2007, Amnesty International calls on the authorities to release all those arrested, detained and imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, to peaceful assembly and association, in accordance with Viet Nam's obligations under international law.
In a trial in the city of Hue on 30 March 2007, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, aged 60, was sentenced to eight years in prison for "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam" under Article 88 of the Penal Code. Accusations levelled against him included involvement in the pro-democracy movement Bloc 8406 and taking part in the establishment of banned political groups. Four co-defendants facing the same charges were also found guilty; two of them, Nguyen Phong and Nguyen Binh Thanh, were sentenced to six and five years imprisonment respectively, two others were given suspended prison terms The two women's suspended prison terms were of two years and 18 months respectively. Additionally, they were sentenced to a "test period" of three years and 18 months respectively, a sort of probation under the supervision of local authorities..
The one-day trial against Father Nguyen Van Ly, who now for the fourth time became a prisoner of conscience, was the first of several trials expected to take place in the months ahead against people who have publicly called for political change or respect for human rights. This crackdown follows a period of relative ease in terms of restricting civil and political rights during which the authorities organized and hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November, lobbied and achieved Permanent Normal Trade Relation status with the USA a month later, and joined the World Trade Organisation in January 2007.
On 10 April 2007, President Nguyen Minh Triet applauded the success of the APEC forum, which in the words of the APEC Chairman Le Cong Phung "has created a positive image of an active, open and safe country." Amnesty International believes that the ongoing crackdown with its clear violations of international human rights law is now creating a sharply contrasting image.
The first of a wave of arrests took place around the time of the APEC forum, when four leading members of the newly formed United Workers-Farmers Organisation (UWFO) were taken in by security officials. Established in October 2006, the UWFO advocates for the right to form and join independent trade and labour unions, which are not allowed under Vietnamese national law. No formal charges have been brought against them, but accusations by authorities have reportedly related to "conducting propaganda" against the state (Article 88 of the Penal Code).
The most recent publicly known arrest was on 21 April 2007 of novelist and journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy for "distorting the social, political and economic situation of Vietnam, denouncing Vietnam for human rights violations, putting the articles on the internet or sending them overseas to exile reactionary organisations," according to state controlled media. Vietnam arrests dissident woman writer, AFP, 23 April 2007
Another recent arrest was of lawyer Le Quoc Quan, who was taken away by police on 8 March after returning from a year-long fellowship in the USA, where he had done research on the role of civil society in emerging democracies. Le Quoc Quan is a pro-democracy activist, advocating religious and political freedom. He has been charged under national security legislation with attempting to overthrow the government (Article 79), which carries the death penalty as the maximum sentence.
Le Quoc Quan is not the only lawyer to be facing serious criminal charges for peacefully expressing opinions. At least four other lawyers have been arrested, including the two human rights lawyers Le Thi Cong Nhan and Nguyen Van Dai. Like Father Ly, Van Dai was among the original signatories of an Internet based petition which formed Bloc 8406. Le Thi Cong Nhan, a spokesperson for the Progression Party, had been the state-appointed legal counsel for a British citizen charged with heroin smuggling. Just days before the trial in November 2006, Le Thi Cong Nhan was placed under house arrest while another lawyer took over the case; on 6 March Le Thi Cong Nhan was arrested together with Nguyen Van Dai. They are both facing charges under Article 88, and are reportedly not allowed to receive any visitors. The Progression Party is only one of many opposition parties that have emerged in breach of national law, which allows only the ruling Communist Party of Viet Nam.
A fifth lawyer, Bui Thi Kim Thanh, a land rights activist, was in November 2006 forcibly admitted to Bien Hoa Mental Hospital, 50 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, in what Amnesty International believes is an attempt by the authorities to punish her for her work on behalf of the Democratic Party.
Numerous others, who are perceived by the authorities as political dissidents, are under house arrest, under surveillance, have had phone lines cut off, computers confiscated or have been harassed and interrogated by government officials. Even relatives of activists have been pressured by officials into ensuring that their activist family member ends his or her activities.
The politically-motivated charges against Father Ly, Le Thi Cong Nhan and others are a campaign by authorities to silence these critical voices and to scare other potential critics of the government into silence. Amnesty International calls on the Vietnamese authorities to honour its international human rights obligations by releasing all prisoners of conscience, including those who are facing criminal charges for having peacefully expressed their opinions. The organisation also calls for an end to all harassment against other peaceful critics.
In view of the fact that the Vietnamese Penal Code criminalises peaceful dissent -- in breach of international law -- Amnesty International calls on the authorities to urgently reform the many ambiguous provisions relating to national security and ensure they are either removed or brought into line with Viet Nam's obligations under international law.
Background
The rights to freedom of expression and assembly are guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The covenant is binding on Viet Nam, which is a state party since 1982. Yet, peaceful government critics have been charged with "conducting propaganda", "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State" and "spying".
Father Nguyen Van Ly has already spent around 15 years in prison for peacefully criticizing government policies on religion and advocating for greater respect for human rights since the late 1970's. He was one of the architects behind an on-line petition which was launched on 8 April 2006 and signed by 118 democracy activists calling for peaceful political change and respect for human rights in Viet Nam. The petition quickly attracted more signatories and its launch marked the effective creation of an Internet based pro-democracy movement, Bloc 8406.
Known arrests of peaceful critics from November 2006 and onwards, age and affiliation (when known):
Bui Kim Thanh, 47 Democratic Party of Viet Nam
Doan Huy Chuong, 21 UWFO
Doan Van Dien, 52 UWFO
Hoang Thi Anh Dao, 21 Progression Party, Lac Hong group
Hong Trung, 45 Vi Dan Party, Lac Hong group
Le Quoc Quan, 36 Affiliation not known
Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28 Progression Party
Le Thi Le Hang, 44 Progression Party
Le Van Sy People's Democratic Party
Nguyen Bac Truyen, 37 People's Democratic Party
Nguyen Binh Thanh, 51 Progression Party, Lac Hong group
Nguyen Phong, 32 Progression Party, Lac Hong group
Nguyen Tan Hoanh, 22 UWFO
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Affiliation not known
Nguyen Tuan People's Democratic Party
Nguyen Van Dai, 38 Bloc 8406, Committee for Human Rights in Viet Nam
Nguyen Van Ly , 60 Progression Party, Bloc 8406
Phan Van Loi Bloc 8406
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy Affiliation not known
Tran Quoc Hien UWFO
Tran Thi Le Hang, 47 UWFO
Tran Thuy Trang Affiliation not known
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Hundreds Demonstrate Outside Vietnamese Embassy Demanding Freedom
By Scott Johnson, Advisor to the Montagnard Foundation
Special to ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- “Those who are hostile and extremely resistant treat them severely and publicly denounce them to the citizens explaining their activities of destroying the country, dividing the ethnic groups, and their other illegal actions.” Vietnamese Government Document, Central Bureau of Religious Affairs, Training Document Hanoi 2006
Montagnard Foundation members playing traditional gongs at US Capital Washington DC. Call for Religious and political freedoms in Vietnam.
On Friday the 20th of April 2007 hundreds of Degar Montagnards, Cambodians and Hmong peoples gathered outside the US Capital in Washington DC before eventually descending on the Vietnamese Embassy. Degar Montagnards in loin clothes beat ancient tribal gongs while Cambodian monks in Orange Robes and Hmong in tribal dress issued statements calling for freedom in Vietnam.
It was a demonstration aimed directly against the Vietnamese communist government and yet it was also a plea for the United States to use its diplomatic leverage to help its former allies - the oppressed peoples of South East Asia. The participants include the Montagnard Foundation representing the Degar Montagnards of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the ethnic Cambodian’s of the Mekong Delta region represented by the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation and the Hmong peoples represented by the World Hmong People’s Congress.
Demonstrators of the Montagnard Foundation, Khmer Kampuchea Kron Federation and World Hmong Peoples' Congress pray for greater freedoms in Vietnam.
The demonstration was all around a peaceful one and the Montagnard Foundation even held Christian prayer services. Yet this protest has little to do with peace in the eyes of the communist regime in Hanoi. The Vietnamese Embassy officials in Washington remained silent and only once did they open the window on the fourth floor to take photographs of the demonstrators below. However, in Vietnam’s Central and Northern Highlands, in the Mekong Delta and in neighboring Laos there is a “secret war” being waged against the region’s indigenous minority populations there and in particular the Christian house Church movement by the regime in Hanoi. This covert war is actually waged against the entire population of Vietnam as the communist politburo brutally represses any vestige of emerging political freedoms.
Over 350 Degar Montagnards remain today in Vietnam’s prisons where they suffer brutal conditions…..and yet in the mainstream media their suffering remains buried in silence. In Vietnam, foreign tourists wander bustling street markets and sunbathe on the beach as Vietnam’s ancient tribal peoples rot in brutal prisons or are cruelly tortured with electric shock by the dreaded security police the “Cong An”. All the while the international community lauds Vietnam’s economic success and espouses the country as an affordable holiday destination.
Hanoi’s war of repression is nonetheless quite real and recently resulted in what Human Rights Watch calls “the severest crackdown in years”.
Leading up to accession to the WTO last year we had seen that Vietnam had made “alleged” progress with religious freedoms and was improving its human rights reforms. Now, we know these were lies and unfortunately the worst scenario happened - Vietnam was granted Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the US, then got into the WTO and then - they did as the critics feared – they reverted back to their old ways of violating human rights by arresting, torturing and killing people. Congressional Representatives such as Chris Smith, Zoe Lofgren, Frank Wolf, Ed Royce, Loretta Sanchez and Dana Rohrabacher condemned the renewed crackdown by the Vietnamese regime and the US Embassy this month called the crackdown “disturbing”. The Vietnamese regime has also used the pretext of religious reform to control the people using torture and imprisonment to force Degar Montagnards to join the official government controlled Church.
This “secret war” waged against those advocating political and religious reform in Vietnam thus is really “not so secret” as it is more accurately just not given adequate coverage by the mainstream media. Likewise many governments spurred by their domestic trade agenda with Vietnam appear to minimalize the repression going on inside Vietnam. “Economic engagement” is after all one of the catchphrases used by those advocating economic relations with Vietnam.
The problem with the “economic engagement” scenario however, lies herein that those in power do everything they can to remain in power. In the short term “economic engagement” is nothing but a death sentence for the dissidents and human rights defenders who speak out against repression. Comparisons with China for example have shown trade concessions have yet to yield any significant political freedoms as the country remains an authoritarian state that crushes dissent with brutal efficiency.
The communist government of Vietnam is no different and has likewise engaged capitalism with enthusiasm while the government controlled press spits out vitriolic anti capitalist babble and arrests, tortures and kills enemies of the state to repel its greatest fear - “Peaceful evolution by hostile forces”.
“Peaceful evolution” is the catchphrase used by the communists to describe the undermining of communism. Strange one would argue how the words “peaceful” and “evolution” conjure up such loathing by the Hanoi regime. But not so strange to those who know the regime in Hanoi seeks the benefits of a market economy without accepting the political freedoms inherent to a capitalist economy.
In Washington the demonstrating groups outside the Vietnamese Embassy know this and gathered together to send a message of protest to the dictators in Hanoi. The demonstrators have something else in common as they were allies with the US during the Vietnam War and since 1975 have suffered severely under Vietnamese communist rule.
In July 2006 a Montagnard Degar named Y Ngo Adrong was beaten to death in police custody in Vietnam and the US State Department described his death as an “extrajudicial killing”. In Laos military operations waged by Laotian and Vietnamese soldiers continue against the Hmong peoples who are desperately hiding in the remote regions of the country. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta security police arrest, threaten and disrobe ethic Khmer monks. Democracy advocates, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests and internet users throughout Vietnam face torture, arrest and lengthy prison terms as House church Christians are brutally tortured in a desperate measure to control the population.
Vietnam is a nation with boundless potential, but the years of communist leadership has kept the country stagnant and population poor. The regime has brutally repressed its minorities and indigenous peoples and sold their citizens and the international community a collection of lies and corrupt ideals whose goal is to preserve the power elite.
In Washington DC outside the Vietnamese Embassy Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation addressed the crowd stating “all of us here today must continue to stand firm and speak out to ensure that human rights, religious freedom and democracy eventually reaches all the imprisoned people who live in Vietnam.”
He is right. “Peace and Evolution” are in fact exactly what the communist regime in Vietnam needs.
Special to ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- “Those who are hostile and extremely resistant treat them severely and publicly denounce them to the citizens explaining their activities of destroying the country, dividing the ethnic groups, and their other illegal actions.” Vietnamese Government Document, Central Bureau of Religious Affairs, Training Document Hanoi 2006
Montagnard Foundation members playing traditional gongs at US Capital Washington DC. Call for Religious and political freedoms in Vietnam.
On Friday the 20th of April 2007 hundreds of Degar Montagnards, Cambodians and Hmong peoples gathered outside the US Capital in Washington DC before eventually descending on the Vietnamese Embassy. Degar Montagnards in loin clothes beat ancient tribal gongs while Cambodian monks in Orange Robes and Hmong in tribal dress issued statements calling for freedom in Vietnam.
It was a demonstration aimed directly against the Vietnamese communist government and yet it was also a plea for the United States to use its diplomatic leverage to help its former allies - the oppressed peoples of South East Asia. The participants include the Montagnard Foundation representing the Degar Montagnards of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the ethnic Cambodian’s of the Mekong Delta region represented by the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation and the Hmong peoples represented by the World Hmong People’s Congress.
Demonstrators of the Montagnard Foundation, Khmer Kampuchea Kron Federation and World Hmong Peoples' Congress pray for greater freedoms in Vietnam.
The demonstration was all around a peaceful one and the Montagnard Foundation even held Christian prayer services. Yet this protest has little to do with peace in the eyes of the communist regime in Hanoi. The Vietnamese Embassy officials in Washington remained silent and only once did they open the window on the fourth floor to take photographs of the demonstrators below. However, in Vietnam’s Central and Northern Highlands, in the Mekong Delta and in neighboring Laos there is a “secret war” being waged against the region’s indigenous minority populations there and in particular the Christian house Church movement by the regime in Hanoi. This covert war is actually waged against the entire population of Vietnam as the communist politburo brutally represses any vestige of emerging political freedoms.
Over 350 Degar Montagnards remain today in Vietnam’s prisons where they suffer brutal conditions…..and yet in the mainstream media their suffering remains buried in silence. In Vietnam, foreign tourists wander bustling street markets and sunbathe on the beach as Vietnam’s ancient tribal peoples rot in brutal prisons or are cruelly tortured with electric shock by the dreaded security police the “Cong An”. All the while the international community lauds Vietnam’s economic success and espouses the country as an affordable holiday destination.
Hanoi’s war of repression is nonetheless quite real and recently resulted in what Human Rights Watch calls “the severest crackdown in years”.
Leading up to accession to the WTO last year we had seen that Vietnam had made “alleged” progress with religious freedoms and was improving its human rights reforms. Now, we know these were lies and unfortunately the worst scenario happened - Vietnam was granted Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the US, then got into the WTO and then - they did as the critics feared – they reverted back to their old ways of violating human rights by arresting, torturing and killing people. Congressional Representatives such as Chris Smith, Zoe Lofgren, Frank Wolf, Ed Royce, Loretta Sanchez and Dana Rohrabacher condemned the renewed crackdown by the Vietnamese regime and the US Embassy this month called the crackdown “disturbing”. The Vietnamese regime has also used the pretext of religious reform to control the people using torture and imprisonment to force Degar Montagnards to join the official government controlled Church.
This “secret war” waged against those advocating political and religious reform in Vietnam thus is really “not so secret” as it is more accurately just not given adequate coverage by the mainstream media. Likewise many governments spurred by their domestic trade agenda with Vietnam appear to minimalize the repression going on inside Vietnam. “Economic engagement” is after all one of the catchphrases used by those advocating economic relations with Vietnam.
The problem with the “economic engagement” scenario however, lies herein that those in power do everything they can to remain in power. In the short term “economic engagement” is nothing but a death sentence for the dissidents and human rights defenders who speak out against repression. Comparisons with China for example have shown trade concessions have yet to yield any significant political freedoms as the country remains an authoritarian state that crushes dissent with brutal efficiency.
The communist government of Vietnam is no different and has likewise engaged capitalism with enthusiasm while the government controlled press spits out vitriolic anti capitalist babble and arrests, tortures and kills enemies of the state to repel its greatest fear - “Peaceful evolution by hostile forces”.
“Peaceful evolution” is the catchphrase used by the communists to describe the undermining of communism. Strange one would argue how the words “peaceful” and “evolution” conjure up such loathing by the Hanoi regime. But not so strange to those who know the regime in Hanoi seeks the benefits of a market economy without accepting the political freedoms inherent to a capitalist economy.
In Washington the demonstrating groups outside the Vietnamese Embassy know this and gathered together to send a message of protest to the dictators in Hanoi. The demonstrators have something else in common as they were allies with the US during the Vietnam War and since 1975 have suffered severely under Vietnamese communist rule.
In July 2006 a Montagnard Degar named Y Ngo Adrong was beaten to death in police custody in Vietnam and the US State Department described his death as an “extrajudicial killing”. In Laos military operations waged by Laotian and Vietnamese soldiers continue against the Hmong peoples who are desperately hiding in the remote regions of the country. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta security police arrest, threaten and disrobe ethic Khmer monks. Democracy advocates, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests and internet users throughout Vietnam face torture, arrest and lengthy prison terms as House church Christians are brutally tortured in a desperate measure to control the population.
Vietnam is a nation with boundless potential, but the years of communist leadership has kept the country stagnant and population poor. The regime has brutally repressed its minorities and indigenous peoples and sold their citizens and the international community a collection of lies and corrupt ideals whose goal is to preserve the power elite.
In Washington DC outside the Vietnamese Embassy Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation addressed the crowd stating “all of us here today must continue to stand firm and speak out to ensure that human rights, religious freedom and democracy eventually reaches all the imprisoned people who live in Vietnam.”
He is right. “Peace and Evolution” are in fact exactly what the communist regime in Vietnam needs.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Heroes leading us through the darkness
BRIDGET JOHNSON, Columnist
LA Daily News
ALONG with exposing the darkest side of human nature, the shootings at Virginia Tech last week reminded us that there are true heroes among us - like Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu, a professor who blocked his classroom door to allow students to escape through the windows.
After the Holocaust, the Romanian Librescu - whose career stalled, said his son, for refusing to swear allegiance to the regime - risked arrest under the Communist system by having his science papers published in the West, until intervention from the Israeli government allowed him to immigrate there in 1979. "This saga epitomizes the life of an entire generation, which has known two of the harshest regimes of history and then reached the promised land of freedom and prosperity during the era of the 'end of history,"' friend Gedeon Dagan, a professor at Tel Aviv University, wrote for the BBC on Saturday.
"The tragic death of Liviu comes as a sombre warning that this might have been a temporary lull and that brutal and dark forces are once again casting their shadow on society."
Indeed, the communism that imprisoned Eastern Europe is not done with humanity. And the heroes are not done battling it.
Last Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., demanding human-rights reforms in Vietnam. At the center of the country's shameful record is Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Roman Catholic priest and editor of a pro-democracy publication who was sentenced March 30 to eight years in prison simply for peacefully opposing the Communist regime.
After hearing the verdict in this farce Vietnam called a trial, Father Ly shouted "Down with the Communist Party of Vietnam!" - and was then dragged away. Like most events nowadays that threaten tyrannical regimes, this stirring moment was caught on camera and distributed across the globe on YouTube.
Other "conspirators" sentenced along with Ly likewise vowed to continue to fight for democracy and freedom. One of these dissidents, Nguyen Phong, who received a six-year sentence, founded the Vietnam Party of Progress to work toward open, peaceful struggle against the oppressive Communist Party.
In a letter to the international community penned after the March 30 verdicts, Phong wrote, "In the face of this utterly unscrupulous behaviour by Vietnam's communist government, I am just an ordinary human being. But I am firmly resolved not retreat before this unjust court. I am firmly resolved to struggle even more for freedom, democracy and human rights.
"I am ready to offer my own personal suffering in exchange for these values for Vietnam."
Father Ly has spent much of his life - about 14 of his 59 years in prison, before this latest sentence - suffering for the cause of Vietnamese democracy and human rights. Ordained a priest in 1974, Father Ly was jailed by the regime by 1977 and spent a year behind bars. When authorities tried to remove him from his parish by force in 1983, surrounding the church, Father Ly got on a loudspeaker and rallied the local population about the need for freedom of religion. Catholics and Buddhists united around the church to try to keep authorities from arresting Father Ly - which 200 policemen eventually did, throwing him back in prison.
The priest has been sent to a labor camp, defied orders from the government to cease religious activities, and planted himself firmly on land to be seized by the government. No amount of police surveillance, harassment, cutting off his phone line or, frankly, prison time has stopped Father Ly. Despite a ban on leaving the country, he submitted testimony to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for a 2001 hearing, resulting in another arrest by 600 policemen storming his church.
"If the United States and other countries truly sympathize with my ill-fated people and truly care about human rights, especially the right to religious freedom, of the Vietnamese people, you must not help the Communist Government prolong its totalitarian rule," Father Ly wrote in the testimony urging the U.S. to nix a trade agreement with Vietnam.
These are my heroes: Librescu, who stood up to evil throughout three dark chapters of history, and Father Ly and company, who continue to stand up to the darkness of an evil and repressive regime.
Librescu, who leaned against a door and took five bullets so that his students could live, and Father Ly, who languishes in dank confinement - again - so that his country might be free.
LA Daily News
ALONG with exposing the darkest side of human nature, the shootings at Virginia Tech last week reminded us that there are true heroes among us - like Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu, a professor who blocked his classroom door to allow students to escape through the windows.
After the Holocaust, the Romanian Librescu - whose career stalled, said his son, for refusing to swear allegiance to the regime - risked arrest under the Communist system by having his science papers published in the West, until intervention from the Israeli government allowed him to immigrate there in 1979. "This saga epitomizes the life of an entire generation, which has known two of the harshest regimes of history and then reached the promised land of freedom and prosperity during the era of the 'end of history,"' friend Gedeon Dagan, a professor at Tel Aviv University, wrote for the BBC on Saturday.
"The tragic death of Liviu comes as a sombre warning that this might have been a temporary lull and that brutal and dark forces are once again casting their shadow on society."
Indeed, the communism that imprisoned Eastern Europe is not done with humanity. And the heroes are not done battling it.
Last Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., demanding human-rights reforms in Vietnam. At the center of the country's shameful record is Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Roman Catholic priest and editor of a pro-democracy publication who was sentenced March 30 to eight years in prison simply for peacefully opposing the Communist regime.
After hearing the verdict in this farce Vietnam called a trial, Father Ly shouted "Down with the Communist Party of Vietnam!" - and was then dragged away. Like most events nowadays that threaten tyrannical regimes, this stirring moment was caught on camera and distributed across the globe on YouTube.
Other "conspirators" sentenced along with Ly likewise vowed to continue to fight for democracy and freedom. One of these dissidents, Nguyen Phong, who received a six-year sentence, founded the Vietnam Party of Progress to work toward open, peaceful struggle against the oppressive Communist Party.
In a letter to the international community penned after the March 30 verdicts, Phong wrote, "In the face of this utterly unscrupulous behaviour by Vietnam's communist government, I am just an ordinary human being. But I am firmly resolved not retreat before this unjust court. I am firmly resolved to struggle even more for freedom, democracy and human rights.
"I am ready to offer my own personal suffering in exchange for these values for Vietnam."
Father Ly has spent much of his life - about 14 of his 59 years in prison, before this latest sentence - suffering for the cause of Vietnamese democracy and human rights. Ordained a priest in 1974, Father Ly was jailed by the regime by 1977 and spent a year behind bars. When authorities tried to remove him from his parish by force in 1983, surrounding the church, Father Ly got on a loudspeaker and rallied the local population about the need for freedom of religion. Catholics and Buddhists united around the church to try to keep authorities from arresting Father Ly - which 200 policemen eventually did, throwing him back in prison.
The priest has been sent to a labor camp, defied orders from the government to cease religious activities, and planted himself firmly on land to be seized by the government. No amount of police surveillance, harassment, cutting off his phone line or, frankly, prison time has stopped Father Ly. Despite a ban on leaving the country, he submitted testimony to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for a 2001 hearing, resulting in another arrest by 600 policemen storming his church.
"If the United States and other countries truly sympathize with my ill-fated people and truly care about human rights, especially the right to religious freedom, of the Vietnamese people, you must not help the Communist Government prolong its totalitarian rule," Father Ly wrote in the testimony urging the U.S. to nix a trade agreement with Vietnam.
These are my heroes: Librescu, who stood up to evil throughout three dark chapters of history, and Father Ly and company, who continue to stand up to the darkness of an evil and repressive regime.
Librescu, who leaned against a door and took five bullets so that his students could live, and Father Ly, who languishes in dank confinement - again - so that his country might be free.
Vietnam Christian Politician In Hiding Amid Police Crackdown
HANOI, VIETNAM (BosNewsLife)— An influential Christian politician was in hiding in Vietnam Tuesday, April 24, after being harassed by Vietnamese security forces who also attacked other dissidents planning to meet US officials, a leading human rights activist confirmed to BosNewsLife.
Tran Van Hoa, "an active Christian" and member of the anti-government People’s Democratic Party was "constantly harassed" by Quang Ninh (province) police, said the activist, Tran Nam, who has close knowledge about the situation.
"Under such unbearable intimidation and terror tactics, Mr. Hoa is no longer living in his home town. He has left his wife and children and gone into hiding," he told BosNewsLife. "Similar to Mr. Hoa’s situation, Mr. Truong Quoc Tuan, brother of detainee Truong Quoc Huy and Mr. Le
Tri Tue, an active member of an independent labor union, also went into hiding," he added. Dissidents said they are both reportedly staying in neighboring Cambodia and seeking refuge there.
It came as US officials were about to investigate reports of a new crackdown in Vietnam on political dissidents and Christians, BosNewsLife learned. On Monday, April 23, activist Vu Thuy Ha was on her way to meet United States Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Marine, to discuss the situation, but she was "hit by a car with plain-clothed police," Tran Nam said. Her health condition was unknown Tuesday, April 24, and Vietnamese officials were not immediately reacting to the latest developments.
POLICE CHECKPOINTS
In addition, police have set up checkpoints near the home of Vu Minh Khanh, the wife of detained human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai.."Khanh was told not to go seeing Ambassador Michael Marine as well. At 2:00 pm (local time) police had set up signs "no cameras" and "no foreigners" around Khanh’s house to prevent anyone from entering her residence," Tran Nam explained.
Just two days earlier, on April 21, writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was reportedly detained by Hanoi police. Dissidents said she was handcuffed and taken away from her family on charges of violating Article 88 of the Criminal Code apparently for “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” which carries a sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment. Thanh
Thuy’s whereabouts were not immediately known Tuesday, April 24. Last week, April 18, Vu Van Hung, a high school teacher in Ha Tay province was arrested in front of his students, Tran Nam added. "Police surrounded the school where Binh was teaching and then took him home for a house-search as he is a democracy supporter. His detention location is unknown," he said.
Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups say Vietnam’s Communist authorities are involved in the most severe crackdown in decades apparently for fear of losing their power base at a time when people, emboldened by economic reforms, are searching for alternatives to the Communist ideology.
CATHOLIC PRIEST
In one of the most prominent recent cases on March 30 a court sentenced dissident Catholic priest Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison on charges of anti-government activities during dramatic proceedings in which the church leader openly condemned the Vietnamese Communist leadership.
The 60-year-old Ly was sentenced by Thua Thien Hue Provincial People’s Court in the city of Hue which claimed he had distributed materials "intended to undermine the government" and has communicated with "anti-Communist groups" overseas. Analysts said Ly, who spent a total of 14 years in prison since 1983 on charges of acting against the Communist state, upset officials by resuming his political activities after he was freed from jail in a 2005 amnesty, and placed under house arrest.
The priest is member of the outlawed "Bloc 8406" pro-democracy coalition, named after its April 8 launch last year, and one of the founders of the banned Vietnam Progression Party. Authorities claim Ly was "plotting" to merge with overseas democracy activists to form a new political umbrella group called "Lac Hong."
Independent churches have also expressed concerns that they will become targets of harassment. It comes at a time when the US is under pressure to add Vietnam once again to its list of Countries of Particular Concern regarding religious freedom violations. Washington recently dropped Vietnam from the list shortly before the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi. (With BosNewsLife Research, Stefan J. Bos and reports from Vietnam).
Tran Van Hoa, "an active Christian" and member of the anti-government People’s Democratic Party was "constantly harassed" by Quang Ninh (province) police, said the activist, Tran Nam, who has close knowledge about the situation.
"Under such unbearable intimidation and terror tactics, Mr. Hoa is no longer living in his home town. He has left his wife and children and gone into hiding," he told BosNewsLife. "Similar to Mr. Hoa’s situation, Mr. Truong Quoc Tuan, brother of detainee Truong Quoc Huy and Mr. Le
Tri Tue, an active member of an independent labor union, also went into hiding," he added. Dissidents said they are both reportedly staying in neighboring Cambodia and seeking refuge there.
It came as US officials were about to investigate reports of a new crackdown in Vietnam on political dissidents and Christians, BosNewsLife learned. On Monday, April 23, activist Vu Thuy Ha was on her way to meet United States Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Marine, to discuss the situation, but she was "hit by a car with plain-clothed police," Tran Nam said. Her health condition was unknown Tuesday, April 24, and Vietnamese officials were not immediately reacting to the latest developments.
POLICE CHECKPOINTS
In addition, police have set up checkpoints near the home of Vu Minh Khanh, the wife of detained human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai.."Khanh was told not to go seeing Ambassador Michael Marine as well. At 2:00 pm (local time) police had set up signs "no cameras" and "no foreigners" around Khanh’s house to prevent anyone from entering her residence," Tran Nam explained.
Just two days earlier, on April 21, writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was reportedly detained by Hanoi police. Dissidents said she was handcuffed and taken away from her family on charges of violating Article 88 of the Criminal Code apparently for “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” which carries a sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment. Thanh
Thuy’s whereabouts were not immediately known Tuesday, April 24. Last week, April 18, Vu Van Hung, a high school teacher in Ha Tay province was arrested in front of his students, Tran Nam added. "Police surrounded the school where Binh was teaching and then took him home for a house-search as he is a democracy supporter. His detention location is unknown," he said.
Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups say Vietnam’s Communist authorities are involved in the most severe crackdown in decades apparently for fear of losing their power base at a time when people, emboldened by economic reforms, are searching for alternatives to the Communist ideology.
CATHOLIC PRIEST
In one of the most prominent recent cases on March 30 a court sentenced dissident Catholic priest Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison on charges of anti-government activities during dramatic proceedings in which the church leader openly condemned the Vietnamese Communist leadership.
The 60-year-old Ly was sentenced by Thua Thien Hue Provincial People’s Court in the city of Hue which claimed he had distributed materials "intended to undermine the government" and has communicated with "anti-Communist groups" overseas. Analysts said Ly, who spent a total of 14 years in prison since 1983 on charges of acting against the Communist state, upset officials by resuming his political activities after he was freed from jail in a 2005 amnesty, and placed under house arrest.
The priest is member of the outlawed "Bloc 8406" pro-democracy coalition, named after its April 8 launch last year, and one of the founders of the banned Vietnam Progression Party. Authorities claim Ly was "plotting" to merge with overseas democracy activists to form a new political umbrella group called "Lac Hong."
Independent churches have also expressed concerns that they will become targets of harassment. It comes at a time when the US is under pressure to add Vietnam once again to its list of Countries of Particular Concern regarding religious freedom violations. Washington recently dropped Vietnam from the list shortly before the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi. (With BosNewsLife Research, Stefan J. Bos and reports from Vietnam).
Vietnam blocks relatives' access to U.S. envoy
By Grant McCool
Wed Apr 25, 7:33 AM ET
For the second time this month, police prevented relatives of Vietnamese political activists from meeting the U.S. Ambassador, the envoy said on Wednesday.
Ambassador Michael Marine, who has called on the communist government to free people arrested in a "crackdown on dissidents" this year, told reporters only one out of five invited made it to his Hanoi residence on Monday.
"The others were prevented from coming either by being called in to the police station or police outside their homes preventing them from coming," Marine said.
One of those was hit and injured by a car believed to be driven by a plainclothes police officer, other diplomats and a U.S.-based group that supports the activists said.
They identified her as Vu Thuy Ha, wife of cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son, who was freed from prison last year after his cause was championed by the United States and the European Union.
Three weeks ago Marine said police manhandled the wives of activists who he had invited to have tea at his residence.
Hanoi rejects accusations of a crackdown, which rights groups say was initiated after the government won entry to the World Trade Organization and hosted an Asia-Pacific summit in November.
Amnesty International said it has recorded more than 20 arrests since November, the latest on April 21 of writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy.
The 47-year-old was described by state-run media as "a hostile female element" charged under article 88 of the criminal code with "spreading propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam."
Last month, a court jailed a long-time dissident Catholic priest, Father Nguyen Van Ly for 8 years under the same statute.
Two lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, were arrested on March 6 and face similar charges at their trial, which is scheduled for May 11 in Hanoi People's Court.
Marine said the arrests were discussed in talks between U.S. and Vietnamese officials in Washington on Tuesday, part of a regular "human rights dialogue" between the former enemies, whose strong ties are founded mostly on trade.
He described the talks as frank and constructive.
Monday, April 30 is the 32nd anniversary of the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam when Washington backed a South Vietnam government against the communist North. Diplomatic ties were restored in 1995.
"We have made clear to Vietnamese officials that the government's crackdown on individuals whose sole crime is peaceful expression of their political views works against U.S.-Vietnamese efforts to strengthen the relationship," Marine said at a briefing in the U.S. Embassy.
He said he expected a visit to the United States this year by Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet to go ahead as planned.
Wed Apr 25, 7:33 AM ET
For the second time this month, police prevented relatives of Vietnamese political activists from meeting the U.S. Ambassador, the envoy said on Wednesday.
Ambassador Michael Marine, who has called on the communist government to free people arrested in a "crackdown on dissidents" this year, told reporters only one out of five invited made it to his Hanoi residence on Monday.
"The others were prevented from coming either by being called in to the police station or police outside their homes preventing them from coming," Marine said.
One of those was hit and injured by a car believed to be driven by a plainclothes police officer, other diplomats and a U.S.-based group that supports the activists said.
They identified her as Vu Thuy Ha, wife of cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son, who was freed from prison last year after his cause was championed by the United States and the European Union.
Three weeks ago Marine said police manhandled the wives of activists who he had invited to have tea at his residence.
Hanoi rejects accusations of a crackdown, which rights groups say was initiated after the government won entry to the World Trade Organization and hosted an Asia-Pacific summit in November.
Amnesty International said it has recorded more than 20 arrests since November, the latest on April 21 of writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy.
The 47-year-old was described by state-run media as "a hostile female element" charged under article 88 of the criminal code with "spreading propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam."
Last month, a court jailed a long-time dissident Catholic priest, Father Nguyen Van Ly for 8 years under the same statute.
Two lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, were arrested on March 6 and face similar charges at their trial, which is scheduled for May 11 in Hanoi People's Court.
Marine said the arrests were discussed in talks between U.S. and Vietnamese officials in Washington on Tuesday, part of a regular "human rights dialogue" between the former enemies, whose strong ties are founded mostly on trade.
He described the talks as frank and constructive.
Monday, April 30 is the 32nd anniversary of the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam when Washington backed a South Vietnam government against the communist North. Diplomatic ties were restored in 1995.
"We have made clear to Vietnamese officials that the government's crackdown on individuals whose sole crime is peaceful expression of their political views works against U.S.-Vietnamese efforts to strengthen the relationship," Marine said at a briefing in the U.S. Embassy.
He said he expected a visit to the United States this year by Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet to go ahead as planned.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Ha Noi Increases Terrorizing Tactics Prior
Ha Noi Increases Terrorizing Tactics Prior
For Immediate Release
(Ha Noi - April 23, 2007) - The Ha Noi government has continued to increase terrorizing tactics on Vietnamese Dissidents prior to meeting the United States regarding human rights issue on April 24, 2007 in Washington DC.
- On April 23, at around 5:50 pm Mrs. Vu Thuy Ha, Dr. Pham Hong Son's wife was on her way to meet United State Ambassador Michael Marine. Mrs. Ha was hit by plain-clothed police car, her health condition is unknown at this time. Ha Noi authorities are well known for using plain-clothes police disguised as thugs to terrorize dissidents and their family members.
- On the same day, at Mrs. Vu Minh Khanh's house, lawyer Nguyen Van Dai's wife was guarded by the police. Khanh was told not to go seeing Ambassador Michael Marine as well. At 2:00 pm, police had set up signs warning "no cameras", "no foreigners" around Khanh's house to prevent anyone from entering her residence.
- On April 21, writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was arrested. Ha Noi police handcuffed and took her away from her family after they announced that Thuy was charged with violating article 88, Viet Nam's criminal code. Thanh Thuy's whereabouts are unknown at this moment.
- On April 18, Mr. Vu Van Hung, a high school teacher at Ha Tay province was arrested. Police surrounded the school where Mr. Binh was teaching. In front of students, they arrested him then took Mr. Hung home for a house-search. Mr. Vu Van Hung is a democracy supporter. His detention location is unknown.
- Mr. Tran Van Hoa, an active Christian and member of the People's Democratic Party was constantly harassed by Quang Ninh police. Under such unbearable intimidation and terror tactics, Mr. Hoa is no longer living in his home town. He has left his wife and children and gone into hiding. Similar to Mr. Hoa's situation, Mr. Truong Quoc Tuan, brother of detainee Truong Quoc Huy and Mr. Le Tri Tue, an active member of independent labor union, also went into hiding. They are both reportedly staying in Cambodia and seeking refuge there.
Regards,
Tran, Nam
For Immediate Release
(Ha Noi - April 23, 2007) - The Ha Noi government has continued to increase terrorizing tactics on Vietnamese Dissidents prior to meeting the United States regarding human rights issue on April 24, 2007 in Washington DC.
- On April 23, at around 5:50 pm Mrs. Vu Thuy Ha, Dr. Pham Hong Son's wife was on her way to meet United State Ambassador Michael Marine. Mrs. Ha was hit by plain-clothed police car, her health condition is unknown at this time. Ha Noi authorities are well known for using plain-clothes police disguised as thugs to terrorize dissidents and their family members.
- On the same day, at Mrs. Vu Minh Khanh's house, lawyer Nguyen Van Dai's wife was guarded by the police. Khanh was told not to go seeing Ambassador Michael Marine as well. At 2:00 pm, police had set up signs warning "no cameras", "no foreigners" around Khanh's house to prevent anyone from entering her residence.
- On April 21, writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was arrested. Ha Noi police handcuffed and took her away from her family after they announced that Thuy was charged with violating article 88, Viet Nam's criminal code. Thanh Thuy's whereabouts are unknown at this moment.
- On April 18, Mr. Vu Van Hung, a high school teacher at Ha Tay province was arrested. Police surrounded the school where Mr. Binh was teaching. In front of students, they arrested him then took Mr. Hung home for a house-search. Mr. Vu Van Hung is a democracy supporter. His detention location is unknown.
- Mr. Tran Van Hoa, an active Christian and member of the People's Democratic Party was constantly harassed by Quang Ninh police. Under such unbearable intimidation and terror tactics, Mr. Hoa is no longer living in his home town. He has left his wife and children and gone into hiding. Similar to Mr. Hoa's situation, Mr. Truong Quoc Tuan, brother of detainee Truong Quoc Huy and Mr. Le Tri Tue, an active member of independent labor union, also went into hiding. They are both reportedly staying in Cambodia and seeking refuge there.
Regards,
Tran, Nam
Monday, April 23, 2007
Vietnam arrests dissident writer, schedules trial for two others
The Associated Press
Monday, April 23, 2007
HANOI, Vietnam: Vietnamese authorities have arrested a dissident writer and scheduled a trial for two other dissidents accused of spreading anti-government propaganda, state media and officials said Monday.
Hanoi human rights lawyers Nguyen Van Dai, 38, and Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28, are scheduled to go on trial May 11, said an official at the Hanoi People's Court, who was not authorized to give his name.
Meanwhile, the communist-party newspaper Nhan Dan (The People) reported Monday that Hanoi police had arrested Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, 47, a novelist and journalist.
Thuy had been honored recently by New York-based Human Rights Watch, which gave her one of its Hellman/Hammett awards, granted to dissident writers for showing "courage in the face of political persecution."
Authorities have accused Thuy of violating Article 88 of Vietnam's criminal code, which broadly prohibits distributing information harmful to the state, Nhan Dan reported.
Police said Thuy was a member of the 8406 bloc, a pro-democracy group that circulated human rights petitions in Vietnam last year, the paper reported. They also accused her of organizing an independent trade union and supporting a dissident human rights commission.
Vietnam's communist government, which does not tolerate challenges to its one-party rule, has been cracking down on dissidents recently.
Dai and Nhan, the Hanoi human rights lawyers, were arrested on March 6 and accused of disseminating propaganda intended to undermine the state, an offense that carries a jail term of up to 12 years.
State media have accused Dai of collaborating with "reactionary elements" in exile to help set up an independent trade union; posting anti-government writings on the Internet; and illegally opening classes on democracy and human rights for young university students.
Last month, a court in central Thua Thien Hue province sentenced Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison for disseminating anti-government propaganda. Four of Ly's associates were also sentenced, one to a six-year term.
They were convicted of working with Vietnamese exiles to establish an independent political organization.
Vietnam maintains that it holds no political prisoners in Vietnam, but only sentences those who break the law.
Monday, April 23, 2007
HANOI, Vietnam: Vietnamese authorities have arrested a dissident writer and scheduled a trial for two other dissidents accused of spreading anti-government propaganda, state media and officials said Monday.
Hanoi human rights lawyers Nguyen Van Dai, 38, and Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28, are scheduled to go on trial May 11, said an official at the Hanoi People's Court, who was not authorized to give his name.
Meanwhile, the communist-party newspaper Nhan Dan (The People) reported Monday that Hanoi police had arrested Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, 47, a novelist and journalist.
Thuy had been honored recently by New York-based Human Rights Watch, which gave her one of its Hellman/Hammett awards, granted to dissident writers for showing "courage in the face of political persecution."
Authorities have accused Thuy of violating Article 88 of Vietnam's criminal code, which broadly prohibits distributing information harmful to the state, Nhan Dan reported.
Police said Thuy was a member of the 8406 bloc, a pro-democracy group that circulated human rights petitions in Vietnam last year, the paper reported. They also accused her of organizing an independent trade union and supporting a dissident human rights commission.
Vietnam's communist government, which does not tolerate challenges to its one-party rule, has been cracking down on dissidents recently.
Dai and Nhan, the Hanoi human rights lawyers, were arrested on March 6 and accused of disseminating propaganda intended to undermine the state, an offense that carries a jail term of up to 12 years.
State media have accused Dai of collaborating with "reactionary elements" in exile to help set up an independent trade union; posting anti-government writings on the Internet; and illegally opening classes on democracy and human rights for young university students.
Last month, a court in central Thua Thien Hue province sentenced Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison for disseminating anti-government propaganda. Four of Ly's associates were also sentenced, one to a six-year term.
They were convicted of working with Vietnamese exiles to establish an independent political organization.
Vietnam maintains that it holds no political prisoners in Vietnam, but only sentences those who break the law.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Democracy activism a 'battle without boundaries'
Democracy activists have taken a new tack against the Communist regime in Vietnam by creating a worldwide network over the Internet.
By DEEPA BHARATH
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Giang Nguyen never strays too far from her computer.
Her mind hovers around a world that revolves in cyberspace. Her eyes search for the people whose only way to reach out to her is from behind that brightly lit screen.
Nguyen is a graduate student of broadcast journalism at Northwestern University in Illinois and a Santa Ana resident. She's also a New Age democracy activist, as are several hundred others in Westminster's Little Saigon and surrounding communities whose common goal is to rid Vietnam of its Communist regime.
She does not shout anti-Communist slogans, plant signs on sidewalks or march in rallies any more. Instead, she sends e-mails to vocal political dissidents in her home country who are spearheading a fight for freedom. She chats with them using a computer program called Paltalk. Sometimes, she sees their bloody or bandaged faces.
"All I can do is offer them moral support and shed a few tears for what they've gone through," Nguyen, 30, said. "But that still makes me part of the movement. I'm fighting for democracy in my own way."
Nguyen is a member of the Vietnam Reform Party or Viet Tan, founded in 1982 with the sole aim of putting an end to the Communist regime in the country of 85 million people. But over the years, the party has evolved from an underground operation working mainly within Vietnam to an international group with tens of thousands of members in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Australia and other Asian countries.
Even though members came into the open as recently as three years ago, they keep much of their operation secret because of the threat of being arrested or even executed, said Diem Do, chairman of Viet Tan worldwide.
"You cannot expect to bring about major change by hiding underground,'' he said.
A searing memory
Do, a bookish, bespectacled business administrator, sometimes wonders about the surreal nature of his "other job" but never doubts its significance. Do was 12 when he escaped Vietnam by ship with his parents and seven siblings on April 29, 1975, a day before the fall of Saigon.
"Two other ships – with hundreds of men, women and little children on board – got blown up," he said. "And I just remember standing there on the deck, staring at those two big balls of fire as they faded into the horizon."
It's a scene that is seared in his memory.
Do's involvement in Viet Tan began in 1982, when he was an undergraduate student at UCLA. Viet Tan's method appealed to him. It was all about arming people with the information they lack.
"It's sowing the seeds of democracy," he said.
Members do it by downloading copies of the U.S. Constitution onto the computers of dissidents in Vietnam, who then share that information with the locals. Members use e-mail and cell-phone text chats to issue alerts. They put up videos on the Internet's YouTube and conduct international dialog through Paltalk.
Every time the Vietnamese government erects a firewall, "we find a way to break it down," Do said. "This is a battle without boundaries."
The Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not return calls asking about the group.
Viet Tan members have become especially vigilant over the past few months because the government has been aggressively arresting political dissidents, said Dung Tran, Viet Tan's Southern California representative.
"There is no freedom in that country – be it personal, political or religious," he said.
The most recent incident, where dissidents were prevented from meeting Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, during her trip to Vietnam, has also sparked outrage in Washington.
Sanchez said she was shocked that the government would crack down on dissidents in front of her and the ambassador.
"During this trip I saw and felt the government's oppressive ways firsthand," she said. She had to change cell phones four times because government agents were monitoring her calls, she said.
The people of Vietnam too seem to have a strong desire for a democratic form of government, Sanchez said.
"Viet Tan is doing a great job to help achieve that," she said. "The government there very actively tries to stop their e-mail, radio and video communications but hasn't been very successful."
Vietnamese officials have consistently denied allegations of harassing dissidents or those who speak out against the regime.
'The right thing to do'
Little Saigon members are as involved in the fight as those in Vietnam, Do said. Many sacrifice their vacation time. Even students as young as 18 spend summers helping out.
Their projects include distributing educational material, talking to local people and recruiting members for Viet Tan. A prominent Garden Grove-based entrepreneur, who would identify himself only by his last name, Nguyen, because he fears for his safety, said he has made more than 50 trips to Vietnam to do such recruiting.
"I've talked to a lot of people, from college students, professors and bankers to people in the police department and other government officials," Nguyen said.
But the group takes several precautions before attempting to recruit someone, said Tran, who organizes these operations and used to be Nguyen's "handler."
"It sounds like we're using CIA lingo, but the kind of work we do is not very different from spy stuff," he said.
Some of their members are armed but only for self-defense, Tran said.
"Our primary goal is to achieve democracy for Vietnam through nonviolent means," he said. "But we do need to defend ourselves if we're attacked. And we're attacked a lot."
Nguyen said that on his last trip to Vietnam, in 2005, Vietnamese police arrested him while he was traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to a town in North Vietnam. He was imprisoned in an abandoned house for several days but was released when his wife contacted the U.S. ambassador, who requested his release.
"I was very, very lucky," Nguyen said. "But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.''
Suffering harassment has become a way of life for party members here and in Vietnam, Tran said. Yet there's a perfectly good reason why people who have lives and careers here will risk everything for a country they fled decades ago, he said.
"It's the right thing to do," he said. "When you are a person with a conscience and you see such oppression, what do you do? Well, we can't keep quiet and do nothing."
Change on horizon?
The rising number of dissidents, international attention and economic progress may mean that Vietnam is ripe for change, said Russell Dalton, a UC Irvine political science professor and one of the academicians who conducted the first public opinion survey on politics in Vietnam.
The 2001 study, commissioned by UCI's Center for the Study of Democracy, found that 72 percent to 74 percent of Vietnamese believe that despite its faults, democracy is the best form of government, Dalton said.
The center has conducted a follow-up study this year, but those results are yet to be reviewed, he said.
"But given the economic liberalization of Vietnam and its recent membership in the World Trade Organization, I would be surprised if people aren't more pro-democracy now than they were six years ago," Dalton said.
It is reasonable to believe that the Communist regime will cave in within the next 30 to 40 years, he said.
"If you take the example of China and now Vietnam, their own economic success erodes their respective Communist regimes," Dalton said.
Change is also visible here in Little Saigon in the attitudes of different generations of Vietnamese-Americans, said Du Mien, 57, a community leader and veteran journalist.
"The first generation is extreme in our stand against Communism because we're still bitter, and no one can blame us for being bitter," he said.
But organizations such as Viet Tan are more liberal in the sense that they don't look at toppling the Communist regime as an end in itself but take a broader view of Vietnam's social and economic problems, he said.
The biggest problem, however, is spreading the seeds of democracy in a nation with 85 million residents, Mien said.
"How many people in Vietnam have computers?" he said. "Viet Tan has a tough task to accomplish. But I hope they do it."
Viet Tan milestones
April 30, 1975: Fall of Saigon
April 30, 1980: An organization called the National United Front for the Freedom of Vietnam was founded by various groups in Vietnam against the Communist Party.
1985: Renamed Viet Tan, reorganized itself after some of the original members parted ways and became a worldwide movement.
1992: Started the New Horizon radio station, which eventually moved to 1503 AM frequency. Viet Tan was able to broadcast for one hour daily from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., Vietnam time
Sept. 19, 2004: The party that was largely underground surfaced with a new name: the Vietnam Reform Party.
Source: www.viettan.org
Black April events
Local community members will get together during various events to commemorate "Black April" or the fall of Saigon, which originally happened on April 30, 1975. Here is a list of some of those events:
April 27-29: Screening of the film "Journey to the Fall" along with a candlelight vigil and a moment of silence at Regal Theater in Garden Grove and Edwards Theater in Westminster.
April 28: A commemoration at the Vietnam War Memorial from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sid Goldstein Freedom Park, 14180 All American Way in Westminster.
April 28-30: Wall of Conscience – a display outside Asian Garden Mall, 9200 Bolsa Ave.
April 28: Car parade down Bolsa Avenue with Vietnamese and American flags, sponsored by the Phan Boi Chau Youth Organization.
April 30: Black April Commemoration at the Fowler Museum, UCLA.
For more information about these events, call Timothy Ngo at 714-414-6626 or Hung Nguyen at 714-553-4672.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
By DEEPA BHARATH
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Giang Nguyen never strays too far from her computer.
Her mind hovers around a world that revolves in cyberspace. Her eyes search for the people whose only way to reach out to her is from behind that brightly lit screen.
Nguyen is a graduate student of broadcast journalism at Northwestern University in Illinois and a Santa Ana resident. She's also a New Age democracy activist, as are several hundred others in Westminster's Little Saigon and surrounding communities whose common goal is to rid Vietnam of its Communist regime.
She does not shout anti-Communist slogans, plant signs on sidewalks or march in rallies any more. Instead, she sends e-mails to vocal political dissidents in her home country who are spearheading a fight for freedom. She chats with them using a computer program called Paltalk. Sometimes, she sees their bloody or bandaged faces.
"All I can do is offer them moral support and shed a few tears for what they've gone through," Nguyen, 30, said. "But that still makes me part of the movement. I'm fighting for democracy in my own way."
Nguyen is a member of the Vietnam Reform Party or Viet Tan, founded in 1982 with the sole aim of putting an end to the Communist regime in the country of 85 million people. But over the years, the party has evolved from an underground operation working mainly within Vietnam to an international group with tens of thousands of members in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Australia and other Asian countries.
Even though members came into the open as recently as three years ago, they keep much of their operation secret because of the threat of being arrested or even executed, said Diem Do, chairman of Viet Tan worldwide.
"You cannot expect to bring about major change by hiding underground,'' he said.
A searing memory
Do, a bookish, bespectacled business administrator, sometimes wonders about the surreal nature of his "other job" but never doubts its significance. Do was 12 when he escaped Vietnam by ship with his parents and seven siblings on April 29, 1975, a day before the fall of Saigon.
"Two other ships – with hundreds of men, women and little children on board – got blown up," he said. "And I just remember standing there on the deck, staring at those two big balls of fire as they faded into the horizon."
It's a scene that is seared in his memory.
Do's involvement in Viet Tan began in 1982, when he was an undergraduate student at UCLA. Viet Tan's method appealed to him. It was all about arming people with the information they lack.
"It's sowing the seeds of democracy," he said.
Members do it by downloading copies of the U.S. Constitution onto the computers of dissidents in Vietnam, who then share that information with the locals. Members use e-mail and cell-phone text chats to issue alerts. They put up videos on the Internet's YouTube and conduct international dialog through Paltalk.
Every time the Vietnamese government erects a firewall, "we find a way to break it down," Do said. "This is a battle without boundaries."
The Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not return calls asking about the group.
Viet Tan members have become especially vigilant over the past few months because the government has been aggressively arresting political dissidents, said Dung Tran, Viet Tan's Southern California representative.
"There is no freedom in that country – be it personal, political or religious," he said.
The most recent incident, where dissidents were prevented from meeting Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, during her trip to Vietnam, has also sparked outrage in Washington.
Sanchez said she was shocked that the government would crack down on dissidents in front of her and the ambassador.
"During this trip I saw and felt the government's oppressive ways firsthand," she said. She had to change cell phones four times because government agents were monitoring her calls, she said.
The people of Vietnam too seem to have a strong desire for a democratic form of government, Sanchez said.
"Viet Tan is doing a great job to help achieve that," she said. "The government there very actively tries to stop their e-mail, radio and video communications but hasn't been very successful."
Vietnamese officials have consistently denied allegations of harassing dissidents or those who speak out against the regime.
'The right thing to do'
Little Saigon members are as involved in the fight as those in Vietnam, Do said. Many sacrifice their vacation time. Even students as young as 18 spend summers helping out.
Their projects include distributing educational material, talking to local people and recruiting members for Viet Tan. A prominent Garden Grove-based entrepreneur, who would identify himself only by his last name, Nguyen, because he fears for his safety, said he has made more than 50 trips to Vietnam to do such recruiting.
"I've talked to a lot of people, from college students, professors and bankers to people in the police department and other government officials," Nguyen said.
But the group takes several precautions before attempting to recruit someone, said Tran, who organizes these operations and used to be Nguyen's "handler."
"It sounds like we're using CIA lingo, but the kind of work we do is not very different from spy stuff," he said.
Some of their members are armed but only for self-defense, Tran said.
"Our primary goal is to achieve democracy for Vietnam through nonviolent means," he said. "But we do need to defend ourselves if we're attacked. And we're attacked a lot."
Nguyen said that on his last trip to Vietnam, in 2005, Vietnamese police arrested him while he was traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to a town in North Vietnam. He was imprisoned in an abandoned house for several days but was released when his wife contacted the U.S. ambassador, who requested his release.
"I was very, very lucky," Nguyen said. "But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.''
Suffering harassment has become a way of life for party members here and in Vietnam, Tran said. Yet there's a perfectly good reason why people who have lives and careers here will risk everything for a country they fled decades ago, he said.
"It's the right thing to do," he said. "When you are a person with a conscience and you see such oppression, what do you do? Well, we can't keep quiet and do nothing."
Change on horizon?
The rising number of dissidents, international attention and economic progress may mean that Vietnam is ripe for change, said Russell Dalton, a UC Irvine political science professor and one of the academicians who conducted the first public opinion survey on politics in Vietnam.
The 2001 study, commissioned by UCI's Center for the Study of Democracy, found that 72 percent to 74 percent of Vietnamese believe that despite its faults, democracy is the best form of government, Dalton said.
The center has conducted a follow-up study this year, but those results are yet to be reviewed, he said.
"But given the economic liberalization of Vietnam and its recent membership in the World Trade Organization, I would be surprised if people aren't more pro-democracy now than they were six years ago," Dalton said.
It is reasonable to believe that the Communist regime will cave in within the next 30 to 40 years, he said.
"If you take the example of China and now Vietnam, their own economic success erodes their respective Communist regimes," Dalton said.
Change is also visible here in Little Saigon in the attitudes of different generations of Vietnamese-Americans, said Du Mien, 57, a community leader and veteran journalist.
"The first generation is extreme in our stand against Communism because we're still bitter, and no one can blame us for being bitter," he said.
But organizations such as Viet Tan are more liberal in the sense that they don't look at toppling the Communist regime as an end in itself but take a broader view of Vietnam's social and economic problems, he said.
The biggest problem, however, is spreading the seeds of democracy in a nation with 85 million residents, Mien said.
"How many people in Vietnam have computers?" he said. "Viet Tan has a tough task to accomplish. But I hope they do it."
Viet Tan milestones
April 30, 1975: Fall of Saigon
April 30, 1980: An organization called the National United Front for the Freedom of Vietnam was founded by various groups in Vietnam against the Communist Party.
1985: Renamed Viet Tan, reorganized itself after some of the original members parted ways and became a worldwide movement.
1992: Started the New Horizon radio station, which eventually moved to 1503 AM frequency. Viet Tan was able to broadcast for one hour daily from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., Vietnam time
Sept. 19, 2004: The party that was largely underground surfaced with a new name: the Vietnam Reform Party.
Source: www.viettan.org
Black April events
Local community members will get together during various events to commemorate "Black April" or the fall of Saigon, which originally happened on April 30, 1975. Here is a list of some of those events:
April 27-29: Screening of the film "Journey to the Fall" along with a candlelight vigil and a moment of silence at Regal Theater in Garden Grove and Edwards Theater in Westminster.
April 28: A commemoration at the Vietnam War Memorial from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sid Goldstein Freedom Park, 14180 All American Way in Westminster.
April 28-30: Wall of Conscience – a display outside Asian Garden Mall, 9200 Bolsa Ave.
April 28: Car parade down Bolsa Avenue with Vietnamese and American flags, sponsored by the Phan Boi Chau Youth Organization.
April 30: Black April Commemoration at the Fowler Museum, UCLA.
For more information about these events, call Timothy Ngo at 714-414-6626 or Hung Nguyen at 714-553-4672.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Free Le Quoc Quan
New York Sun Editorial
April 20, 2007
When Senator McCain signs a letter along with Vin Weber, who is a top policy adviser to Mr. McCain's rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, it is worth paying attention to, especially when the letter is also signed by President Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. The letter, addressed to the "president" of Vietnam, calls for the release by Vietnamese authorities of a 35-year-old lawyer, Le Quoc Quan, who was arrested March 8, shortly after he returned to his country from a five-month fellowship in Washington at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Messrs. McCain and Weber and Ms. Albright write that they are "shocked and outraged" by the lawyer's arrest. They warn that his detention casts a "dark cloud" over "the image of Vietnam and the prospects for improved ties between our countries." The American ambassador in Vietnam, Michael Marine, earlier this month circulated an opinion article that listed Le Quoc Quan as among "an increasing number of individuals in prison or under detention in Vietnam whose only crime was the peaceful expression of their views."
The ambassador wrote that the Vietnamese government "must release these and other individuals now. It must also take steps to revise or repeal laws so that the peaceful expression of one's views ? even if they are critical of the state ? is no longer illegal." The president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman, said in a statement, "It is a deep insult to the United States that the Vietnamese regime would harass someone in this way who has just participated in a citizen exchange program supported by the US Congress and Department of State."
A blog devoted to the case, freelequocquan.blogspot.com, carries an arrest notice for Le Quoc Quan that describes his crime as "?Participation in activities to overthrow the People's government' as stated in Article 79 of The Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam." The notice says that he is being held at detention camp B14 of the Ministry of Public Security. The NED is urging concerned individuals to register their protests with the embassy of Vietnam in Washington, whose phone number is (202) 861-0737. President Bush honored Vietnam with a visit there in November. If this is how the communists return the favor, it will cause a lot of Americans to rethink the normalization of our relations with the country.
More broadly, at a time when Democrats and even some Republicans are agitating for a hasty retreat from Iraq, the arrest in Vietnam underscores the long-lasting consequences of American retreat. Thirty-two years after the fall of Saigon, the communist regime in Vietnam is jailing individuals for being associated with the idea of democracy. Do we really want to be reading in 2039 about the jailing of a young democracy advocate in Iraq?
April 20, 2007
When Senator McCain signs a letter along with Vin Weber, who is a top policy adviser to Mr. McCain's rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, it is worth paying attention to, especially when the letter is also signed by President Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. The letter, addressed to the "president" of Vietnam, calls for the release by Vietnamese authorities of a 35-year-old lawyer, Le Quoc Quan, who was arrested March 8, shortly after he returned to his country from a five-month fellowship in Washington at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Messrs. McCain and Weber and Ms. Albright write that they are "shocked and outraged" by the lawyer's arrest. They warn that his detention casts a "dark cloud" over "the image of Vietnam and the prospects for improved ties between our countries." The American ambassador in Vietnam, Michael Marine, earlier this month circulated an opinion article that listed Le Quoc Quan as among "an increasing number of individuals in prison or under detention in Vietnam whose only crime was the peaceful expression of their views."
The ambassador wrote that the Vietnamese government "must release these and other individuals now. It must also take steps to revise or repeal laws so that the peaceful expression of one's views ? even if they are critical of the state ? is no longer illegal." The president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman, said in a statement, "It is a deep insult to the United States that the Vietnamese regime would harass someone in this way who has just participated in a citizen exchange program supported by the US Congress and Department of State."
A blog devoted to the case, freelequocquan.blogspot.com, carries an arrest notice for Le Quoc Quan that describes his crime as "?Participation in activities to overthrow the People's government' as stated in Article 79 of The Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam." The notice says that he is being held at detention camp B14 of the Ministry of Public Security. The NED is urging concerned individuals to register their protests with the embassy of Vietnam in Washington, whose phone number is (202) 861-0737. President Bush honored Vietnam with a visit there in November. If this is how the communists return the favor, it will cause a lot of Americans to rethink the normalization of our relations with the country.
More broadly, at a time when Democrats and even some Republicans are agitating for a hasty retreat from Iraq, the arrest in Vietnam underscores the long-lasting consequences of American retreat. Thirty-two years after the fall of Saigon, the communist regime in Vietnam is jailing individuals for being associated with the idea of democracy. Do we really want to be reading in 2039 about the jailing of a young democracy advocate in Iraq?
Friday, April 20, 2007
House Foreign Affairs Committee Approves Smith's Resolution Calling for Human Rights Reform in Vietnam
Smith resolution calls for an immediate release of Father Ly, other political prisoners
WASHINGTON, April 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
A resolution authored by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) calling for substantial human rights reforms in Vietnam was overwhelming approved today by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee during their first mark-up since Vietnam's kangaroo court
conviction of Father Nguyen Van Ly.
"Father Ly's sham trial proves once again that the regime in Hanoi is
not committed to the human rights reforms they promised as a precondition
for normalized trade relations. It is not enough for the Government of
Vietnam to talk reform - they must also show progress through their deeds,"
said Smith, who actively opposed the granting of normal trade relations
with Vietnam. "Recent government actions show that Vietnam is moving
backwards, not forward. This resolution reinforces our unwavering
commitment to human rights reform in Vietnam and demands that the regime in
Hanoi cease their persecution of dissidents."
"There is no compromise, no halfway point when it comes to basic human
rights. We must send a clear message to the Government of Vietnam that
there is no place in modern society for their conduct."
Introduced last month, Smith's resolution (H.Res. 243) calls on the
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to immediately and
unconditionally release political prisoners and prisoners of conscience,
including Father Ly and those who have been arrested in a recent wave of
government oppression. The resolution also calls for the Government of
Vietnam to comply with internationally recognized standards for basic
freedoms and human rights.
"I have met with Father Ly and a number of other dissidents who are now
behind bars or under constant surveillance and harassment in Vietnam. The
bullies in Hanoi continue their systematic and brutal politically motivated
crackdown on democratic activists and this must end," Smith said.
"Father Ly's arrest and conviction are purely political, a shameful
attempt to silence him and intimidate anyone else who dares to speak out
against the government. We have an obligation to speak up for Father Ly and
other dissidents who are persecuted in Vietnam. Now that the Committee has
spoken through this resolution, it is time for the full House to
immediately pass it and give a voice to the dissidents in Vietnam," Smith
added.
Earlier this year, the parish house of Father Ly - a former prisoner of
conscience who spent over 13 years in prison - was raided. Father Ly was
moved to a remote location and placed under house arrest. Father Ly is an
advisor to "Block 8406" - a democracy movement which started last April -
and a new political party, the Vietnam Progression Party.
On March 30th, Father Ly was sentenced to 8 years in prison for
distributing "anti-government" materials.
Father Ly was among a number of dissidents swept up in a recent
crackdown in Vietnam. Earlier this month, Vietnamese police arrested
another member of "Block 8406," principal spokesperson for the Vietnam
Progression Party and the founder of the Vietnamese Labor Movement, Le Thi
Cong Nhan. On the same day - March 6, 2007 - Vietnamese police arrested one
of Vietnam's few practicing human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai.
A similar Smith-authored resolution condemning human rights abuses in
Vietnam and calling on the Government of Vietnam to release political
prisoners passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006.
WASHINGTON, April 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
A resolution authored by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) calling for substantial human rights reforms in Vietnam was overwhelming approved today by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee during their first mark-up since Vietnam's kangaroo court
conviction of Father Nguyen Van Ly.
"Father Ly's sham trial proves once again that the regime in Hanoi is
not committed to the human rights reforms they promised as a precondition
for normalized trade relations. It is not enough for the Government of
Vietnam to talk reform - they must also show progress through their deeds,"
said Smith, who actively opposed the granting of normal trade relations
with Vietnam. "Recent government actions show that Vietnam is moving
backwards, not forward. This resolution reinforces our unwavering
commitment to human rights reform in Vietnam and demands that the regime in
Hanoi cease their persecution of dissidents."
"There is no compromise, no halfway point when it comes to basic human
rights. We must send a clear message to the Government of Vietnam that
there is no place in modern society for their conduct."
Introduced last month, Smith's resolution (H.Res. 243) calls on the
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to immediately and
unconditionally release political prisoners and prisoners of conscience,
including Father Ly and those who have been arrested in a recent wave of
government oppression. The resolution also calls for the Government of
Vietnam to comply with internationally recognized standards for basic
freedoms and human rights.
"I have met with Father Ly and a number of other dissidents who are now
behind bars or under constant surveillance and harassment in Vietnam. The
bullies in Hanoi continue their systematic and brutal politically motivated
crackdown on democratic activists and this must end," Smith said.
"Father Ly's arrest and conviction are purely political, a shameful
attempt to silence him and intimidate anyone else who dares to speak out
against the government. We have an obligation to speak up for Father Ly and
other dissidents who are persecuted in Vietnam. Now that the Committee has
spoken through this resolution, it is time for the full House to
immediately pass it and give a voice to the dissidents in Vietnam," Smith
added.
Earlier this year, the parish house of Father Ly - a former prisoner of
conscience who spent over 13 years in prison - was raided. Father Ly was
moved to a remote location and placed under house arrest. Father Ly is an
advisor to "Block 8406" - a democracy movement which started last April -
and a new political party, the Vietnam Progression Party.
On March 30th, Father Ly was sentenced to 8 years in prison for
distributing "anti-government" materials.
Father Ly was among a number of dissidents swept up in a recent
crackdown in Vietnam. Earlier this month, Vietnamese police arrested
another member of "Block 8406," principal spokesperson for the Vietnam
Progression Party and the founder of the Vietnamese Labor Movement, Le Thi
Cong Nhan. On the same day - March 6, 2007 - Vietnamese police arrested one
of Vietnam's few practicing human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai.
A similar Smith-authored resolution condemning human rights abuses in
Vietnam and calling on the Government of Vietnam to release political
prisoners passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006.
Jailed Vietnamese priest accepts suffering as witness to Catholic faith, brother says
By Paul Gray
4/19/2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)
PERTH, Australia (CNS) – A Vietnamese priest sentenced to jail for spreading propaganda has accepted his suffering as an opportunity to bear witness to Catholicism, said his older brother.
"He has said that going to jail, for him, is a chance to convert people and baptize them," said Nguyen Hoang An of his brother, Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly.
Vietnamese prisons do not allow inmates to be visited by priests, An told The Record, the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth, through an interpreter. An has lived in Australia since 1983 but speaks little English.
An said that during Father Ly's long years in jail he has converted many prisoners and prison guards to the Catholic faith.
Prison authorities will not speak with Father Ly in his cell, where all conversations are filmed and recorded on tape. Instead they summon Father Ly to a meeting in the open air, where their words cannot be monitored by Communist Party officials, An said.
Father Ly, who has already spent 14 years in Vietnamese prisons – much of it in solitary confinement, was recently sentenced to eight more years in jail. Father Ly and four pro-democracy lay Catholic activists were jailed after speaking against Vietnam's one-party government.
Though there has been speculation about the mental effect such intense incarceration might have had on Father Ly, An said his brother is mentally strong and that his frequent prayer to God while in jail acts as a preventative against mental deterioration.
An said he did not believe that his brother would be subjected to torture in his current imprisonment, but he said torture has been a regular feature of the prison system in Vietnam.
An, who has spent time in prison, described the psychological and physical tortures used for decades on ordinary, noncriminal Vietnamese who have run afoul of the communist regime.
"They torture you in many ways," he said. "They use two lights, very bright, and you have to look into it. Soon your brain goes blank. They don't let you eat.
"They make you stand with your hands on the wall, and if you happen to kneel down or drop that pose, they will hit you," he said. "And in the heat, in the sun, they will make you stand to the flagpole. You have to stand and look at the flag and when you're too tired, when you fall down, they will hit you and make you stand up again. And that's before they start to question you.
"Then when you're too frightened, you will say everything that they want you to say," said An. "They write your supposed confession and, in that state of mind, you sign whatever they have written for you."
An has called for Australia and other countries to impose sanctions on Vietnam until the country makes progress on human rights. The Vatican, Amnesty International, and American and Australian political leaders have publicly denounced the priest's imprisonment.
An noted that he is not confident he will see his brother again. He said he previously attempted to organize safe passage for his brother to travel to Australia but that Father Ly had refused, saying that his fight for human rights and freedom of religion lay in Vietnam.
Members of the Australia Vietnam Human Rights Committee, who have been collaborating with An in promoting Father Ly's cause, told The Record that they believed Father Ly would not be allowed to leave Vietnam.
4/19/2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)
PERTH, Australia (CNS) – A Vietnamese priest sentenced to jail for spreading propaganda has accepted his suffering as an opportunity to bear witness to Catholicism, said his older brother.
"He has said that going to jail, for him, is a chance to convert people and baptize them," said Nguyen Hoang An of his brother, Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly.
Vietnamese prisons do not allow inmates to be visited by priests, An told The Record, the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth, through an interpreter. An has lived in Australia since 1983 but speaks little English.
An said that during Father Ly's long years in jail he has converted many prisoners and prison guards to the Catholic faith.
Prison authorities will not speak with Father Ly in his cell, where all conversations are filmed and recorded on tape. Instead they summon Father Ly to a meeting in the open air, where their words cannot be monitored by Communist Party officials, An said.
Father Ly, who has already spent 14 years in Vietnamese prisons – much of it in solitary confinement, was recently sentenced to eight more years in jail. Father Ly and four pro-democracy lay Catholic activists were jailed after speaking against Vietnam's one-party government.
Though there has been speculation about the mental effect such intense incarceration might have had on Father Ly, An said his brother is mentally strong and that his frequent prayer to God while in jail acts as a preventative against mental deterioration.
An said he did not believe that his brother would be subjected to torture in his current imprisonment, but he said torture has been a regular feature of the prison system in Vietnam.
An, who has spent time in prison, described the psychological and physical tortures used for decades on ordinary, noncriminal Vietnamese who have run afoul of the communist regime.
"They torture you in many ways," he said. "They use two lights, very bright, and you have to look into it. Soon your brain goes blank. They don't let you eat.
"They make you stand with your hands on the wall, and if you happen to kneel down or drop that pose, they will hit you," he said. "And in the heat, in the sun, they will make you stand to the flagpole. You have to stand and look at the flag and when you're too tired, when you fall down, they will hit you and make you stand up again. And that's before they start to question you.
"Then when you're too frightened, you will say everything that they want you to say," said An. "They write your supposed confession and, in that state of mind, you sign whatever they have written for you."
An has called for Australia and other countries to impose sanctions on Vietnam until the country makes progress on human rights. The Vatican, Amnesty International, and American and Australian political leaders have publicly denounced the priest's imprisonment.
An noted that he is not confident he will see his brother again. He said he previously attempted to organize safe passage for his brother to travel to Australia but that Father Ly had refused, saying that his fight for human rights and freedom of religion lay in Vietnam.
Members of the Australia Vietnam Human Rights Committee, who have been collaborating with An in promoting Father Ly's cause, told The Record that they believed Father Ly would not be allowed to leave Vietnam.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
VIETNAM: CHRISTIAN LAWYERS COULD GET HARSH SENTENCES
Sentencing of Fr. Ly bodes poorly for dissident human rights activist Nguyen Van Dai.
HO CHI MINH CITY, April 18 (Compass Direct News) – Following the March 29 sentencing of Father Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison for distributing “material harmful to the state,” two Protestant lawyers charged with the same “crime” are expected to face equally harsh sentences in what Human Rights Watch has called the harshest crackdown in 20 years.
Attorney Nguyen Van Dai, a 38-year-old member of the main Hanoi congregation of the legally-recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), or ECVN (N), since 2000, was arrested on March 2. He had been documenting human rights violations in Vietnam.
According to Pastor Au Quang Vinh of the Hanoi church, a second lawyer, 27-year-old Le This Cong Nhan, was also arrested in early March. She had just completed a doctrine course for new believers at the same church in preparation for baptism.
Both lawyers also have friends among Vietnam’s house churches. Dai is also a member of Advocates International, an organization which brings together Christian human rights lawyers from many countries.
Authorities have prohibited Dai’s wife, Khanh, from visiting him, and her home phone and cell phone services have been cut. A Christian source also said that police have been trying to incite neighbors against her.
An 80-year-old lawyer, Tran Lam of Hai Phong, is willing to defend Dai, but contrary to Vietnamese law, police will not allow him to have contact with Dai, sources said. They added that authorities prohibited Dai from taking his Bible or some of his medications with him.
Media Slur
Following the arrests of Dai and Nhan, Vietnam’s official press painted the two lawyers in unflattering terms. On March 14 and 17, the An Ninh The Gioi (World Security) newspaper, official organ of the Ministry of Public Security, carried a four-page, two-part article showing the government’s view of the two lawyers and the case against them.
Both lawyers are described as very average individuals who could not hold a job after graduation from law school. Revealing more than intended, the article describes Dai getting into law school without sufficient grades because of his father’s influence as a Communist Party member.
The report paints both lawyers as criminals. Dai is said to have received a U.S. State Department scholarship to study advocacy in the United States and to have later helped to study Internet and computer security in the Philippines. He is accused of distributing “alleged infractions of religious liberty” to Vietnam’s enemies aboard.
Nhan is accused of assisting in the establishment of an “independent trade union.” Both are accused of fraternizing with other dissidents in the country and with counter-revolutionary exiles abroad. Both are accused of teaching students and other young lawyers “the values of Western human rights.”
They are also accused of involvement in a pro-democracy movement called Bloc 8406, begun a year ago. The Roman Catholic Fr. Ly has been accused of helping to found Bloc 8406. The 60-year-old Fr. Ly, who had been under house arrest since February, has spent 14 of the past 24 years in prison.
Dai is accused in the article of getting money from counter-revolutionary exiles abroad and of stealing US$80,000 from the ECVN (N). Church leaders told Compass that they were not aware of any such money.
Dai’s activities in human rights advocacy, beyond religious freedom, have become controversial in Vietnam’s evangelical community. Many Vietnamese Protestants believe it is too risky to challenge the political monopoly of the state in such matters. Some are even willing to pay the high price of silence on other human rights in exchange for supposed improvements in religious freedom.
The ECVN (N) leadership reportedly indicates some reservations about Dai’s dissident activities. In an apparent leak to the government of a copy of its executive committee minutes of June 6, 2006, the An Ninh The Gioi article says the church committee moved to remove Dai from the church’s legal committee for fear that his involvement in human rights work would “damage the reputation of the church.”
The official newspaper article tries to inextricably link together Dai, the ECVN (N) and the U.S. government, in keeping with the long-held fear by Vietnam’s authorities of “peaceful evolution.” In this paradigm, Vietnam says that after its erstwhile enemies lost the war in 1975, they have then turned to “democracy, human rights and religious freedom” to try to overthrow the communist revolution. All three factors have been invoked to justify the crackdown.
The U.S. State Department, which has strongly defended removal of Vietnam from its list of the worst religious liberty violators last November, has been witness to some recent events that could evoke second thoughts. U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Marine recently spoke diplomatically about the crackdown and the rights of Vietnam’s citizens to engage in peaceful expression of their views on human rights and political matters – but then things turned nasty.
On April 6, the ambassador invited the wives of four imprisoned dissidents, including Dai’s wife, as well as the mother of Nhan, to a reception at his home in Hanoi to meet U.S. Congressional representatives. The police prevented three of the women from even leaving their neighborhoods and stopped the other two women with a large police contingent outside the ambassador’s home.
According to a report from The Associated Press from Hanoi on April 6, the usually conciliatory ambassador complained strongly about this to Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phan Gia Khiem.
“You had 15 men surrounding two women, speaking in loud voices and grabbing their upper arms and tugging them,” Marine reportedly said. “I told them it was absolutely wrong for women anywhere to be treated that way.”
A long-time Vietnam observer remarked, “People may have growing freedom to ‘believe,’ but when Christian-motivated activists act on their belief that the dignity of humankind leads to inalienable human rights, they are still prosecuted in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, where peaceful human right advocacy is considered a criminal offense.”
Coming to Christ
The Vietnamese Assemblies of God house churches first called on Dai in 1999 to try to use legal means to fight the arrest of a house church leader, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thuy, in Vinh Phu Province. That appeal was unsuccessful, but Dai became a believer through the Christian contacts he met in the process.
Shortly after, Dai and his wife became active at the Hanoi Evangelical Church at 2 Ngo Tram Street.
Dai gained notoriety among authorities in Vietnam and some recognition abroad for his defense of “the Mennonite six” in 2004 and 2005, a case he lost in spite of superior arguments due to the lack of an independent judiciary in Vietnam. Two of the six accused Mennonites, however, were released before the end of their sentences because of strong international advocacy.
Nhan, recruited by Dai into his law firm, became a Christian in 2006. She and her mother had been Baha’i believers but were expelled for “going against Baha’i beliefs and doctrine.” Nhan was supposed to be baptized this past Easter.
END
HO CHI MINH CITY, April 18 (Compass Direct News) – Following the March 29 sentencing of Father Nguyen Van Ly to eight years in prison for distributing “material harmful to the state,” two Protestant lawyers charged with the same “crime” are expected to face equally harsh sentences in what Human Rights Watch has called the harshest crackdown in 20 years.
Attorney Nguyen Van Dai, a 38-year-old member of the main Hanoi congregation of the legally-recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), or ECVN (N), since 2000, was arrested on March 2. He had been documenting human rights violations in Vietnam.
According to Pastor Au Quang Vinh of the Hanoi church, a second lawyer, 27-year-old Le This Cong Nhan, was also arrested in early March. She had just completed a doctrine course for new believers at the same church in preparation for baptism.
Both lawyers also have friends among Vietnam’s house churches. Dai is also a member of Advocates International, an organization which brings together Christian human rights lawyers from many countries.
Authorities have prohibited Dai’s wife, Khanh, from visiting him, and her home phone and cell phone services have been cut. A Christian source also said that police have been trying to incite neighbors against her.
An 80-year-old lawyer, Tran Lam of Hai Phong, is willing to defend Dai, but contrary to Vietnamese law, police will not allow him to have contact with Dai, sources said. They added that authorities prohibited Dai from taking his Bible or some of his medications with him.
Media Slur
Following the arrests of Dai and Nhan, Vietnam’s official press painted the two lawyers in unflattering terms. On March 14 and 17, the An Ninh The Gioi (World Security) newspaper, official organ of the Ministry of Public Security, carried a four-page, two-part article showing the government’s view of the two lawyers and the case against them.
Both lawyers are described as very average individuals who could not hold a job after graduation from law school. Revealing more than intended, the article describes Dai getting into law school without sufficient grades because of his father’s influence as a Communist Party member.
The report paints both lawyers as criminals. Dai is said to have received a U.S. State Department scholarship to study advocacy in the United States and to have later helped to study Internet and computer security in the Philippines. He is accused of distributing “alleged infractions of religious liberty” to Vietnam’s enemies aboard.
Nhan is accused of assisting in the establishment of an “independent trade union.” Both are accused of fraternizing with other dissidents in the country and with counter-revolutionary exiles abroad. Both are accused of teaching students and other young lawyers “the values of Western human rights.”
They are also accused of involvement in a pro-democracy movement called Bloc 8406, begun a year ago. The Roman Catholic Fr. Ly has been accused of helping to found Bloc 8406. The 60-year-old Fr. Ly, who had been under house arrest since February, has spent 14 of the past 24 years in prison.
Dai is accused in the article of getting money from counter-revolutionary exiles abroad and of stealing US$80,000 from the ECVN (N). Church leaders told Compass that they were not aware of any such money.
Dai’s activities in human rights advocacy, beyond religious freedom, have become controversial in Vietnam’s evangelical community. Many Vietnamese Protestants believe it is too risky to challenge the political monopoly of the state in such matters. Some are even willing to pay the high price of silence on other human rights in exchange for supposed improvements in religious freedom.
The ECVN (N) leadership reportedly indicates some reservations about Dai’s dissident activities. In an apparent leak to the government of a copy of its executive committee minutes of June 6, 2006, the An Ninh The Gioi article says the church committee moved to remove Dai from the church’s legal committee for fear that his involvement in human rights work would “damage the reputation of the church.”
The official newspaper article tries to inextricably link together Dai, the ECVN (N) and the U.S. government, in keeping with the long-held fear by Vietnam’s authorities of “peaceful evolution.” In this paradigm, Vietnam says that after its erstwhile enemies lost the war in 1975, they have then turned to “democracy, human rights and religious freedom” to try to overthrow the communist revolution. All three factors have been invoked to justify the crackdown.
The U.S. State Department, which has strongly defended removal of Vietnam from its list of the worst religious liberty violators last November, has been witness to some recent events that could evoke second thoughts. U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Marine recently spoke diplomatically about the crackdown and the rights of Vietnam’s citizens to engage in peaceful expression of their views on human rights and political matters – but then things turned nasty.
On April 6, the ambassador invited the wives of four imprisoned dissidents, including Dai’s wife, as well as the mother of Nhan, to a reception at his home in Hanoi to meet U.S. Congressional representatives. The police prevented three of the women from even leaving their neighborhoods and stopped the other two women with a large police contingent outside the ambassador’s home.
According to a report from The Associated Press from Hanoi on April 6, the usually conciliatory ambassador complained strongly about this to Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phan Gia Khiem.
“You had 15 men surrounding two women, speaking in loud voices and grabbing their upper arms and tugging them,” Marine reportedly said. “I told them it was absolutely wrong for women anywhere to be treated that way.”
A long-time Vietnam observer remarked, “People may have growing freedom to ‘believe,’ but when Christian-motivated activists act on their belief that the dignity of humankind leads to inalienable human rights, they are still prosecuted in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, where peaceful human right advocacy is considered a criminal offense.”
Coming to Christ
The Vietnamese Assemblies of God house churches first called on Dai in 1999 to try to use legal means to fight the arrest of a house church leader, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thuy, in Vinh Phu Province. That appeal was unsuccessful, but Dai became a believer through the Christian contacts he met in the process.
Shortly after, Dai and his wife became active at the Hanoi Evangelical Church at 2 Ngo Tram Street.
Dai gained notoriety among authorities in Vietnam and some recognition abroad for his defense of “the Mennonite six” in 2004 and 2005, a case he lost in spite of superior arguments due to the lack of an independent judiciary in Vietnam. Two of the six accused Mennonites, however, were released before the end of their sentences because of strong international advocacy.
Nhan, recruited by Dai into his law firm, became a Christian in 2006. She and her mother had been Baha’i believers but were expelled for “going against Baha’i beliefs and doctrine.” Nhan was supposed to be baptized this past Easter.
END
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Albright, McCain and Weber Call for Release of Le Quoc Quan
Albright, McCain and Weber Call for Release of Le Quoc Quan
National Endowment for Democracy
WASHINGTON, DC -- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Senator John McCain and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Chairman Vin Weber are the authors of a letter sent April 12 to the President of Vietnam protesting the March 8 arrest of Le Quoc Quan, a Vietnamese lawyer who was most recently a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at NED.
"Quan impressed all who met him with his integrity, passion for assisting the poor, and commitment to assisting Vietnam's growth and development," the letter states. "Throughout his fellowship, Quan was an outstanding representative of Vietnam and its people, winning many friends and bringing great credit to his country. The National Endowment for Democracy is honored to have hosted him.
"We cannot emphasize strongly enough our deep concern over Quan's arrest and the dark cloud that his continued detention casts over the image of Vietnam and the prospects for improved ties between our countries. We call upon you to make all necessary arrangements for his swift release."
Albright and McCain serve as Chairmen of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute respectively, which are key partners of the National Endowment for Democracy. Today's letter is an important element of an international campaign to protest the recent human rights crackdown in Vietnam, and the arrest of Le Quoc Quan in particular.
Read the full text of the letter here:
http://www.ned.org/press/quanLetter-41207.pdf
National Endowment for Democracy
WASHINGTON, DC -- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Senator John McCain and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Chairman Vin Weber are the authors of a letter sent April 12 to the President of Vietnam protesting the March 8 arrest of Le Quoc Quan, a Vietnamese lawyer who was most recently a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at NED.
"Quan impressed all who met him with his integrity, passion for assisting the poor, and commitment to assisting Vietnam's growth and development," the letter states. "Throughout his fellowship, Quan was an outstanding representative of Vietnam and its people, winning many friends and bringing great credit to his country. The National Endowment for Democracy is honored to have hosted him.
"We cannot emphasize strongly enough our deep concern over Quan's arrest and the dark cloud that his continued detention casts over the image of Vietnam and the prospects for improved ties between our countries. We call upon you to make all necessary arrangements for his swift release."
Albright and McCain serve as Chairmen of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute respectively, which are key partners of the National Endowment for Democracy. Today's letter is an important element of an international campaign to protest the recent human rights crackdown in Vietnam, and the arrest of Le Quoc Quan in particular.
Read the full text of the letter here:
http://www.ned.org/press/quanLetter-41207.pdf
Monday, April 16, 2007
Vietnam cyber-dissident expected to face court
HANOI (AFP) - A detained Vietnamese cyber-dissident is expected to face trial soon, possibly as early as this week, for "abusing democratic freedoms," say relatives and overseas-based pro-democracy activists.
The mother of 25-year-old Truong Quoc Huy said her family had received a summons to attend his trial Monday afternoon in Ho Chi Minh City, but a court official who refused to give his name said the hearing had been postponed.
Vietnam's communist government has in recent weeks arrested several political dissidents and late last month sentenced one prominent activist, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, to eight years' jail.
Huy, a mobile telephone technician, was first arrested in an Internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2005 after joining online discussions on democracy on the website Paltalk.com.
Detained with him were his brother Truong Quoc Tuan and Tuan's fiance Pham Ngoc Anh Dao, a US citizen also known as Lisa Pham.
The three spent nine months in detention without charge.
Six weeks after they were freed in July last year, Huy was again arrested at an Internet cafe, and his family has not heard from him since.
Huy's mother Chau Thi Hoang told AFP that her family had received papers last Friday summonsing them to the trial on Monday afternoon.
"They accused Huy of something like abusing democracy and saying bad things about the government," she said. "My son is innocent."
She said she did not known whether the trial would be postponed, adding that the court had scrapped an earlier hearing scheduled for March.
Hoang also said police had questioned her other son Tuan, that her telephone line had been disconnected and that "life is difficult for us because we are always being disturbed by the police."
Huy and a co-defendant identified as Huynh Tan Phat are accused of communicating with overseas-based activists and other offences, according to a newspaper published by the police and dissident websites.
Vietnam says it does not punish dissidents, only people who break its laws. In Huy's case the charge, article 258 of the criminal code, is "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, the legitimate rights and interests of organisations and/or citizens."
Huy is charged with committing this offence "in serious circumstances, " which carries a jail term of two to seven years.
Agence France-Presse
The mother of 25-year-old Truong Quoc Huy said her family had received a summons to attend his trial Monday afternoon in Ho Chi Minh City, but a court official who refused to give his name said the hearing had been postponed.
Vietnam's communist government has in recent weeks arrested several political dissidents and late last month sentenced one prominent activist, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, to eight years' jail.
Huy, a mobile telephone technician, was first arrested in an Internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2005 after joining online discussions on democracy on the website Paltalk.com.
Detained with him were his brother Truong Quoc Tuan and Tuan's fiance Pham Ngoc Anh Dao, a US citizen also known as Lisa Pham.
The three spent nine months in detention without charge.
Six weeks after they were freed in July last year, Huy was again arrested at an Internet cafe, and his family has not heard from him since.
Huy's mother Chau Thi Hoang told AFP that her family had received papers last Friday summonsing them to the trial on Monday afternoon.
"They accused Huy of something like abusing democracy and saying bad things about the government," she said. "My son is innocent."
She said she did not known whether the trial would be postponed, adding that the court had scrapped an earlier hearing scheduled for March.
Hoang also said police had questioned her other son Tuan, that her telephone line had been disconnected and that "life is difficult for us because we are always being disturbed by the police."
Huy and a co-defendant identified as Huynh Tan Phat are accused of communicating with overseas-based activists and other offences, according to a newspaper published by the police and dissident websites.
Vietnam says it does not punish dissidents, only people who break its laws. In Huy's case the charge, article 258 of the criminal code, is "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, the legitimate rights and interests of organisations and/or citizens."
Huy is charged with committing this offence "in serious circumstances, " which carries a jail term of two to seven years.
Agence France-Presse
Saturday, April 14, 2007
US Silence Muzzles Vietnam's Dissidents
by ANDREW LAM
A picture paints a thousand words, but an image taken from the state-controlled television in Vietnam and circulated widely on the Internet can convey the struggle of an entire people. Flanked by two angry-looking policemen, a man sits bleary-eyed, his mouth covered by the hand of an out-of-uniform policeman behind him.
Name: Father Ly Van Nguyen. Sentence: Eight years imprisonment. Crime: Carrying out propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
During the trial on March 30, Father Ly Nguyen's mouth was physically muzzled after he recited four lines of his own poetry.
"Communist trial of Vietnam
A lewd comedy for years
Jurors a bunch of baboons
Servants of dictators, who are you to judge?"
International human rights groups condemned the sentencing, which took only five minutes without a defense lawyer. "This sentence means Father Ly will be a prisoner of conscience for the fourth time in two decades," noted Amnesty International's Deputy Asia Pacific Director, Tim Parritt. "It is indicative of a broader crackdown on dissent by the Vietnamese authorities that has been intensifying since the country held the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting last November."
Vietnam intermittently plays a cat and mouse game with its political dissidents, arresting and releasing its most famous activists while those less visible are disappeared. Since March, however, Vietnam has launched one of the worst attacks on dissidents in 20 years. Among those arrested with Father Ly were Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan. All three were charged with carrying out propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, under article 88 of the Penal Code. If convicted, Le and Dai face sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
The arrest and subsequent disappearance of lawyers Le Quoc Quan and Tran Thuy Trang, however, are particularly alarming. Both are well known. After returning from a fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, Quan was arrested March 8, and charged with attempting to overthrow the Hanoi regime. The day before, Trang, another young lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City, was reportedly arrested by 60 security police. She has not been heard from since. According to Human Rights Watch, Trang's family was forced to sign documents promising not to discuss the arrest.
Speculations abound. Why now? Vietnam, after all, has been granted membership in the World Trade Organization and made its entrance to the world's economic stage last November when it hosted its first Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. Its Gross National Product has been growing at a steady and impressive seven percent for the last several years, and while political dissent is not allowed, its population is experiencing far more personal freedoms than during the cold war. Many are allowed to travel overseas. Private capitalism is all the rage. Movement within Vietnam is permitted freely. There's a middle class with disposable income and access to the Internet. Vietnamese media, too, while still controlled by the state, have proliferated and some have been pushing the envelope to cover stories of corruption and even official wrongdoings.
Perhaps that's precisely why, at least in the eye of the ruling communist elites, the crackdown seems to be needed: to maintain absolute political power. Political movements are brewing along with an increasingly wealthy and educated population, especially now that the population is growing more sophisticated and politically aware. Voices of dissent are heard daily, if not on the op-ed page, then at least on the streets.
Nguyen Van Dai, an outspoken dissident, is one of a handful of practicing human rights lawyers in Vietnam. He founded the Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam in 2006 and was recently awarded the prestigious Hellman/Hammett prize for persecuted writers.
Father Ly is a co-founder of Bloc 8406 - a political movement that made its entrance to Vietnam's public stage on April 8 of 2006 when it published "Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy." Two days earlier, it had issued an "Appeal for Freedom of Political Association." These documents boldly challenged the Vietnamese government to uphold individuals' rights to free expression, association, and participation in political affairs.
Hanoi swiftly retaliated against both. "Several key organizers of Bloc 8406 and their families have been harassed and imprisoned, showing that the Vietnamese government is still trying to silence its critics," noted Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Targeting the most vocal, visible activists sends a message to the others: don't speak out, or you'll suffer the same fate."
If Hanoi was hesitant to act before President Bush's visit during the APEC meeting last November, it was not afterwards. For a president who touted "freedom" and "democracy" in the Middle East, Bush came bearing an unexpected gift - a license, as it were - for the government to use against its dissidents. Though the U.S. president originally had hoped to give Vietnam normal trading status, that deal was delayed in Congress. Embarrassed by having no gift in hand, he dropped Vietnam from the list of nations that severely curtail religious freedom instead, even as these violations continued unabated.
The widely published photo of Bush smiling amicably under the bust of Ho Chi Minh augured terribly bad feng shui for Vietnamese human rights activists. It clashed with images of heavily guarded homes of political dissidents just a few kilometers from the APEC meeting in Hanoi. Freedom and democracy, apparently, were far from the U.S. President's mind in Vietnam. The United States once served as the bright and shiny model of democracy for many in Vietnam. But no longer.
Since Bush's visit, the list of those arrested has grown. Nguyen Tan Hoanh, Doan Van Dien, Doan Huy Chuong, Tran Thi Le Hong, Le Ba Triet, and Nguyen Tuan are among hundreds of political and religious prisoners in Vietnam, including cyber-dissident Nguyen Vu Binh, at least nine members of the Cao Dai religion, 10 Hoa Hao Buddhists, and more than 350 ethnic minority Christian "Montagnards" from the Central Highlands.
In Vietnam the word censorship is the colloquial phrase: bit mien - to cover the mouth. The picture of Father Ly's muzzling seems a literal enactment of an old cliché. But in the old days, his image wouldn't have gotten out of the country so quickly or circulated so widely, nor would his voice be heard at all. Back then, before the Cold War ended, he would have disappeared without a trace.
The wind of change seems to be on the dissidents' side. Thanks to high-tech communications such as the Internet, cell phones and satellite dishes, and increasing interactions with foreigners, Vietnam has a more informed, and therefore, increasingly restless, citizenry.
The Vietnamese word for leader - lanh dao - literally means "bearer of the truth (or the way)." Such leadership is non-existent among communist party leaders since Ho Chi Minh. These days, the carriers of the dao are identified with dissidents like Father Nguyen Van Ly and human rights lawyers like Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, prisoners of conscience with fearless spirit and indomitable strength.
And so, if one were to peel away the policeman's hand from Father Ly's mouth, the rest of his poem may go something like this.
"You can cover our mouths, blind our eyes
We will still speak, and see
Your rotten ideology is at an end
Your cruelty the sign of weakness
Change is coming! Change is coming!
And we, the people, will be free."
A picture paints a thousand words, but an image taken from the state-controlled television in Vietnam and circulated widely on the Internet can convey the struggle of an entire people. Flanked by two angry-looking policemen, a man sits bleary-eyed, his mouth covered by the hand of an out-of-uniform policeman behind him.
Name: Father Ly Van Nguyen. Sentence: Eight years imprisonment. Crime: Carrying out propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
During the trial on March 30, Father Ly Nguyen's mouth was physically muzzled after he recited four lines of his own poetry.
"Communist trial of Vietnam
A lewd comedy for years
Jurors a bunch of baboons
Servants of dictators, who are you to judge?"
International human rights groups condemned the sentencing, which took only five minutes without a defense lawyer. "This sentence means Father Ly will be a prisoner of conscience for the fourth time in two decades," noted Amnesty International's Deputy Asia Pacific Director, Tim Parritt. "It is indicative of a broader crackdown on dissent by the Vietnamese authorities that has been intensifying since the country held the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting last November."
Vietnam intermittently plays a cat and mouse game with its political dissidents, arresting and releasing its most famous activists while those less visible are disappeared. Since March, however, Vietnam has launched one of the worst attacks on dissidents in 20 years. Among those arrested with Father Ly were Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan. All three were charged with carrying out propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, under article 88 of the Penal Code. If convicted, Le and Dai face sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
The arrest and subsequent disappearance of lawyers Le Quoc Quan and Tran Thuy Trang, however, are particularly alarming. Both are well known. After returning from a fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, Quan was arrested March 8, and charged with attempting to overthrow the Hanoi regime. The day before, Trang, another young lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City, was reportedly arrested by 60 security police. She has not been heard from since. According to Human Rights Watch, Trang's family was forced to sign documents promising not to discuss the arrest.
Speculations abound. Why now? Vietnam, after all, has been granted membership in the World Trade Organization and made its entrance to the world's economic stage last November when it hosted its first Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. Its Gross National Product has been growing at a steady and impressive seven percent for the last several years, and while political dissent is not allowed, its population is experiencing far more personal freedoms than during the cold war. Many are allowed to travel overseas. Private capitalism is all the rage. Movement within Vietnam is permitted freely. There's a middle class with disposable income and access to the Internet. Vietnamese media, too, while still controlled by the state, have proliferated and some have been pushing the envelope to cover stories of corruption and even official wrongdoings.
Perhaps that's precisely why, at least in the eye of the ruling communist elites, the crackdown seems to be needed: to maintain absolute political power. Political movements are brewing along with an increasingly wealthy and educated population, especially now that the population is growing more sophisticated and politically aware. Voices of dissent are heard daily, if not on the op-ed page, then at least on the streets.
Nguyen Van Dai, an outspoken dissident, is one of a handful of practicing human rights lawyers in Vietnam. He founded the Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam in 2006 and was recently awarded the prestigious Hellman/Hammett prize for persecuted writers.
Father Ly is a co-founder of Bloc 8406 - a political movement that made its entrance to Vietnam's public stage on April 8 of 2006 when it published "Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy." Two days earlier, it had issued an "Appeal for Freedom of Political Association." These documents boldly challenged the Vietnamese government to uphold individuals' rights to free expression, association, and participation in political affairs.
Hanoi swiftly retaliated against both. "Several key organizers of Bloc 8406 and their families have been harassed and imprisoned, showing that the Vietnamese government is still trying to silence its critics," noted Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Targeting the most vocal, visible activists sends a message to the others: don't speak out, or you'll suffer the same fate."
If Hanoi was hesitant to act before President Bush's visit during the APEC meeting last November, it was not afterwards. For a president who touted "freedom" and "democracy" in the Middle East, Bush came bearing an unexpected gift - a license, as it were - for the government to use against its dissidents. Though the U.S. president originally had hoped to give Vietnam normal trading status, that deal was delayed in Congress. Embarrassed by having no gift in hand, he dropped Vietnam from the list of nations that severely curtail religious freedom instead, even as these violations continued unabated.
The widely published photo of Bush smiling amicably under the bust of Ho Chi Minh augured terribly bad feng shui for Vietnamese human rights activists. It clashed with images of heavily guarded homes of political dissidents just a few kilometers from the APEC meeting in Hanoi. Freedom and democracy, apparently, were far from the U.S. President's mind in Vietnam. The United States once served as the bright and shiny model of democracy for many in Vietnam. But no longer.
Since Bush's visit, the list of those arrested has grown. Nguyen Tan Hoanh, Doan Van Dien, Doan Huy Chuong, Tran Thi Le Hong, Le Ba Triet, and Nguyen Tuan are among hundreds of political and religious prisoners in Vietnam, including cyber-dissident Nguyen Vu Binh, at least nine members of the Cao Dai religion, 10 Hoa Hao Buddhists, and more than 350 ethnic minority Christian "Montagnards" from the Central Highlands.
In Vietnam the word censorship is the colloquial phrase: bit mien - to cover the mouth. The picture of Father Ly's muzzling seems a literal enactment of an old cliché. But in the old days, his image wouldn't have gotten out of the country so quickly or circulated so widely, nor would his voice be heard at all. Back then, before the Cold War ended, he would have disappeared without a trace.
The wind of change seems to be on the dissidents' side. Thanks to high-tech communications such as the Internet, cell phones and satellite dishes, and increasing interactions with foreigners, Vietnam has a more informed, and therefore, increasingly restless, citizenry.
The Vietnamese word for leader - lanh dao - literally means "bearer of the truth (or the way)." Such leadership is non-existent among communist party leaders since Ho Chi Minh. These days, the carriers of the dao are identified with dissidents like Father Nguyen Van Ly and human rights lawyers like Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, prisoners of conscience with fearless spirit and indomitable strength.
And so, if one were to peel away the policeman's hand from Father Ly's mouth, the rest of his poem may go something like this.
"You can cover our mouths, blind our eyes
We will still speak, and see
Your rotten ideology is at an end
Your cruelty the sign of weakness
Change is coming! Change is coming!
And we, the people, will be free."
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Vietnam plans to waive entry visas for Vietnamese
Vietnam plans to waive entry visas for Vietnamese
2007/4/12
By Tran Van Minh HANOI, Vietnam, AP
Vietnam is working on a plan to waive entry visas for ethnic Vietnamese holding foreign passports, an official said Wednesday.
Top officials have said publicly that overseas Vietnamese, known as Viet kieu, will soon be allowed to return to their native country without going through the visa application process.
"We hope a decision will be announced in a month or two," said an official at the Foreign Ministry's Commission for Overseas Vietnamese who did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Under the proposed plan, overseas Vietnamese with foreign passports can stay in Vietnam up to three months without a visa, he said, adding authorities will have the right to deny entry to anyone the government considers a threat to national security.
There are an estimated 3.2 million Viet kieu worldwide, with more than 1.5 million living in the United States.
Last year, some 500,000 overseas Vietnamese returned to their native country, many visiting during the popular Lunar New Year festivities, known as Tet. Some US$4.8 billion (euro3.5 billion) was remitted to relatives living in the country, according to the state media.
Citizens from most countries in Southeast Asia along with Japan, South Korea and Scandinavia are allowed to stay in Vietnam for varying periods of up to 30 days without a visa.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
VIDEO - Democracy Activists' wives harrased in front of Ambassador Marine's house in Hanoi
This video shows the Vietnamese police thugs intimidating the wives of imprisoned Vietnamese democracy activists- Mrs. Ha and Mrs. Ngan, preventing them from participating in a scheduled tea meeting with Ambassador Marine and US Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez the evening of Friday, April 6.
Check out all 3 videos:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=richardeagle
Check out all 3 videos:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=richardeagle
Rep. Lofgren Calls on State Department to Add Vietnam to CPC List
Rep. Lofgren Calls on State Department to Add Vietnam to Countries of Particular Concern List
Letter to Secretary of State Rice Notes Concerns on Human Rights
April 9, 2007
Washington, DC – Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) has called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to list Vietnam as one of the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). In a letter to Secretary Rice, Rep. Lofgren outlined her concern that Vietnam ’s record on religious freedom, free speech, and other basic human rights has only worsened since receiving Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status with the United States .
The complete text of the letter is below:
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Madam Secretary,
I strongly urge you to reconsider placing Vietnam on the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list for its severe violations of religious freedom, free speech, and other basic human rights.
As you are aware, in 2004, Vietnam was first added to the annual CPC designation because of government repression towards many religious believers. The campaigns to force people to renounce their faith, the detainment of dozens of religious prisoners, and the harassment as well as physical mistreatment of some believers amounted to inexcusable human rights violations. In their efforts to gain Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the U.S. in 2006, Vietnam embarked on a disingenuous public relations campaign to cleanse its image as a human rights violator. Consequently, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John V. Hanford III kept Vietnam off the CPC list and announced that the Government of Vietnam had made significant improvements towards advancing religious freedom.
I think it is obvious that the conditions of religious freedom in Vietnam have not improved but have worsened severely. Ambassador Hanford III cites in his November 13, 2006 briefing that Catholics now have the freedom in Vietnam to train and ordain new priests to serve their congregations. However, recent incidents demonstrate otherwise. For example, the Vietnamese government removed Father Nguyen Van Ly from his parish and sentenced him to 8 years in prison for allegedly conducting propaganda activities to harm the security of the state. Further, Vietnam continues to assert the right to approve of bishops' nominations before they are announced by the Vatican .
The Ambassador also mentioned that Vietnam has laws against forced renunciations and that reports of this disturbing practice are now very isolated. This is simply untrue, as the government continues to harass, arrest, and impose restrictions on organized religious followers such as Catholics and Buddhists, and to view minority religious groups with broad suspicion. The reasons Ambassador Hanford III presented for not re-designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern have all been contradicted by these recent events.
Father Nguyen Van Ly is the highest profile dissident currently in prison, but many other human rights and religious freedom proponents have been imprisoned in Vietnam and subjected to government harassment. For example, Vietnamese police, on March 6, 2007, arrested a pair of human-rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, for organizing training sessions for political activists in the capital. There are hundreds of other dissidents whom have been imprisoned simply for expressing speech and attempting the practice of their faith freely and openly.
I appreciate that you brought up human rights concerns with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem during their March 2007 visit to the United States . However, I believe this is not sufficient. The recent actions by Vietnam should be a warning sign that the government will only continue to deny basic human rights and religious freedoms to its people. The United States of America has a long and honorable tradition of advocating for religious freedom and human rights throughout the world, especially with our trading partners. Exceptions should not be made for Vietnam . In light of these and other human rights violations by Vietnam , I urge you to re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern.
Sincerely,
Zoe Lofgren
Member of Congress
Letter to Secretary of State Rice Notes Concerns on Human Rights
April 9, 2007
Washington, DC – Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) has called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to list Vietnam as one of the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). In a letter to Secretary Rice, Rep. Lofgren outlined her concern that Vietnam ’s record on religious freedom, free speech, and other basic human rights has only worsened since receiving Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status with the United States .
The complete text of the letter is below:
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Madam Secretary,
I strongly urge you to reconsider placing Vietnam on the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list for its severe violations of religious freedom, free speech, and other basic human rights.
As you are aware, in 2004, Vietnam was first added to the annual CPC designation because of government repression towards many religious believers. The campaigns to force people to renounce their faith, the detainment of dozens of religious prisoners, and the harassment as well as physical mistreatment of some believers amounted to inexcusable human rights violations. In their efforts to gain Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the U.S. in 2006, Vietnam embarked on a disingenuous public relations campaign to cleanse its image as a human rights violator. Consequently, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John V. Hanford III kept Vietnam off the CPC list and announced that the Government of Vietnam had made significant improvements towards advancing religious freedom.
I think it is obvious that the conditions of religious freedom in Vietnam have not improved but have worsened severely. Ambassador Hanford III cites in his November 13, 2006 briefing that Catholics now have the freedom in Vietnam to train and ordain new priests to serve their congregations. However, recent incidents demonstrate otherwise. For example, the Vietnamese government removed Father Nguyen Van Ly from his parish and sentenced him to 8 years in prison for allegedly conducting propaganda activities to harm the security of the state. Further, Vietnam continues to assert the right to approve of bishops' nominations before they are announced by the Vatican .
The Ambassador also mentioned that Vietnam has laws against forced renunciations and that reports of this disturbing practice are now very isolated. This is simply untrue, as the government continues to harass, arrest, and impose restrictions on organized religious followers such as Catholics and Buddhists, and to view minority religious groups with broad suspicion. The reasons Ambassador Hanford III presented for not re-designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern have all been contradicted by these recent events.
Father Nguyen Van Ly is the highest profile dissident currently in prison, but many other human rights and religious freedom proponents have been imprisoned in Vietnam and subjected to government harassment. For example, Vietnamese police, on March 6, 2007, arrested a pair of human-rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, for organizing training sessions for political activists in the capital. There are hundreds of other dissidents whom have been imprisoned simply for expressing speech and attempting the practice of their faith freely and openly.
I appreciate that you brought up human rights concerns with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem during their March 2007 visit to the United States . However, I believe this is not sufficient. The recent actions by Vietnam should be a warning sign that the government will only continue to deny basic human rights and religious freedoms to its people. The United States of America has a long and honorable tradition of advocating for religious freedom and human rights throughout the world, especially with our trading partners. Exceptions should not be made for Vietnam . In light of these and other human rights violations by Vietnam , I urge you to re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern.
Sincerely,
Zoe Lofgren
Member of Congress
Monday, April 9, 2007
Democracy Alert: World Movement for Democracy
Alert: Growing Repression in Vietnam
The World Movement for Democracy expresses its concern about the recent and growing number of violations of human rights in Vietnam. Since February there has been an evident increase in state repression of individuals who are involved in religious, human rights, and/or pro-democracy work. The arrests and interrogations violate international standards of human rights and Vietnam's own Constitution, which upholds human rights for the citizens of Vietnam in the political, civic, economic, cultural, and social realms.
Individuals who have been arrested, detained, or interrogated since February include the following:
The following are statements and reports issued by various individuals and organizations concerning the growing repression and recent human rights violations in Vietnam:
Committee to Protect Journalists
US Congressman Chris SmithHuman Rights Watch
International Buddhist Information Bureau: Statement 1, Statement 2, Statement 3, Statement 4
Radio Free Asia
Rafto Foundation (Norway)
Voice of America
World Movement for Democracy (see p. 8)
The World Movement for Democracy expresses its concern about the recent and growing number of violations of human rights in Vietnam. Since February there has been an evident increase in state repression of individuals who are involved in religious, human rights, and/or pro-democracy work. The arrests and interrogations violate international standards of human rights and Vietnam's own Constitution, which upholds human rights for the citizens of Vietnam in the political, civic, economic, cultural, and social realms.
Individuals who have been arrested, detained, or interrogated since February include the following:
- Buddhist youth leader Le Cong Cau's house in Hue was surrounded on March 17 and he has been forbidden to leave since then;
- Human rights lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan were arrested in Hanoi on March 6 and charged under article 88 of the criminal code, which bans propaganda against the government;
- Democracy activists Bach Ngoc Duong and Pham Van Coi were arrested in February;
- Human rights and democracy activist and Catholic priest Father Nguyen Van Ly's house was raided and his computers, phones, and documents were seized on February 18, and he was subsequently charged under article 88 of the criminal code, which bans propaganda against the government;
- Head of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam Youth Commission Thich Thien Minh has been accused of activities opposing the government and was summoned for interrogations on March 19;
- Vietnam Progression Party members Nguyen Binh Thanh and Hoang Thi Dao were arrested in February;
- Lawyer Le Quoc Quan was arrested on March 8 and charged under article 79 of the criminal code, which bans "activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government"; and
- Buddhist monk Thich Chi Thang was detained on March 16 for interrogation.
Moreover, Buddhist dissident Thich Huyen Quang, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and the UBCV's Deputy Leader Thich Quang Do are both under house arrest. (They have both spent over 25 years in detention for their non-violent advocacy of religious freedom, human rights, and democracy). Thich Quang Do is held in isolation at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery, deprived of the right to preach, communicate or travel, and forbidden to receive visits. He was denied the right to travel to Norway in November 2006 to receive the Rafto Human Rights Award, and representatives of the Rafto Foundation were arrested on March 15, 2007 when they came to Vietnam to hand him the Rafto Diploma.
In April 2006, at the Fourth Assembly in Istanbul, Turkey, the World Movement for Democracy paid tribute to Vietnamese democracy activists. The WMD recognized two particularly heroic figures: Hoang Minh Chinh, a former high-ranking member of the Communist Party, and Buddhist dissident Thich Quang Do, Deputy Leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, who has spent over 25 years in detention for his non-violent advocacy of religious freedom, human rights, and democracy. Even from prison, these men and many others like them from both the secular and religious communities have courageously disseminated messages defending human rights, increased pluralism, and the rule of law in Vietnam.
The following are statements and reports issued by various individuals and organizations concerning the growing repression and recent human rights violations in Vietnam:
Committee to Protect Journalists
US Congressman Chris SmithHuman Rights Watch
International Buddhist Information Bureau: Statement 1, Statement 2, Statement 3, Statement 4
Radio Free Asia
Rafto Foundation (Norway)
Voice of America
World Movement for Democracy (see p. 8)
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Vietnam democracy movement under attack
(AFP)
8 April 2007
HANOI - A year after it was founded, Vietnam’s Bloc 8406 pro-democracy movement is under attack from a communist government unwilling to tolerate political dissent, say analysts and human rights groups.
While Vietnam is winning plaudits for its booming economy, red-hot stock market and global integration, a series of arrests and the jailing of an activist Catholic priest have been condemned as a return to darker days.
The crackdown against the underground movement, with more trials expected soon, has soured otherwise blossoming relations with the United States.
The US State Department said it was “deeply troubled” by the jailing of Father Nguyen Van Ly and “an increase of harassment, detention and arrest of individuals peacefully exercising the legitimate right to peaceful speech.”
On the eve of the movement’s first anniversary, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Vietnam is cracking down on Bloc 8406 organisers and their families.
“Targeting the most vocal, visible activists sends a message to the others: don’t speak out or you’ll suffer the same fate,” HRW said.
Bloc 8406 takes its name from the date it was founded, the 8th of April 2006.
Largely ignored by the outside world, 118 dissidents signed an online manifesto for a non-violent struggle and declared: “The one-party political regime must be once and for all buried in the dustbin of history.”
They have called for a boycott of National Assembly elections next month.
The movement — a small minority unknown to many of Vietnam’s 84 million people — includes academics, clergy, writers, medical doctors, engineers, nurses, businessmen, army veterans and ordinary citizens.
Working under the threat of arrest, they communicated online with each other and exile groups and gathered signatures, now claiming 2,000 members.
Vietnam’s leaders publicly ignored them while negotiating entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and readied to host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, seen as Vietnam’s debut as a new key Asian player.
Days before US President George W. Bush arrived for the November APEC summit, Washington took Vietnam off a religious freedom watch-list, and weeks later it granted it full trading rights, paving the way for WTO entry.
Human rights groups protested, pointing at the ongoing repression of some Buddhist and Christian groups.
When the APEC leaders met and a parallel business summit celebrated the birth of a new Asian Tiger, police kept Hanoi dissidents under tight lockdown.
In February, on the eve of the Tet Lunar New Year, police arrested three of Vietnam’s most prominent dissidents — Ly as well as Hanoi lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, who are to face trial soon.
HRW said Vietnam, “emboldened by international recognition,” was launching “one of the worst crackdowns on peaceful dissidents in 20 years.”
When Ly was on trial, where he was sentenced to eight years in jail, Vietnam took the unusual step of allowing foreign diplomats and media to watch.
But it earned condemnation for the swift trial, in which a guard muzzled Ly with his hand.
The open trial, meant to signal transparency, instead showed a ”throw-back to Vietnam’s communist past,” said Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy.
As pressure has mounted in the US Congress for a tougher line against Hanoi, US ambassador Michael Marine last Thursday called on Vietnam to free Ly and five other dissidents and ultimately end one-party rule.
Tension rose when police barred the wives of two key dissidents from visiting Marine’s residence in ugly scenes that the diplomat said were “at risk of spiralling out of control.”
Vietnam says it has no political prisoners and only jails criminals.
Domestically, said Thayer, it has succeeded by leaving Bloc 8406 ”in disarray and on the defensive” ahead of the May elections.
“The regime had to move to intimidate the rank and file Bloc 8406 supporters,” he said. “They have had fair sailing up to now, but now the regime has moved to take the winds out of their sails.”
8 April 2007
HANOI - A year after it was founded, Vietnam’s Bloc 8406 pro-democracy movement is under attack from a communist government unwilling to tolerate political dissent, say analysts and human rights groups.
While Vietnam is winning plaudits for its booming economy, red-hot stock market and global integration, a series of arrests and the jailing of an activist Catholic priest have been condemned as a return to darker days.
The crackdown against the underground movement, with more trials expected soon, has soured otherwise blossoming relations with the United States.
The US State Department said it was “deeply troubled” by the jailing of Father Nguyen Van Ly and “an increase of harassment, detention and arrest of individuals peacefully exercising the legitimate right to peaceful speech.”
On the eve of the movement’s first anniversary, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Vietnam is cracking down on Bloc 8406 organisers and their families.
“Targeting the most vocal, visible activists sends a message to the others: don’t speak out or you’ll suffer the same fate,” HRW said.
Bloc 8406 takes its name from the date it was founded, the 8th of April 2006.
Largely ignored by the outside world, 118 dissidents signed an online manifesto for a non-violent struggle and declared: “The one-party political regime must be once and for all buried in the dustbin of history.”
They have called for a boycott of National Assembly elections next month.
The movement — a small minority unknown to many of Vietnam’s 84 million people — includes academics, clergy, writers, medical doctors, engineers, nurses, businessmen, army veterans and ordinary citizens.
Working under the threat of arrest, they communicated online with each other and exile groups and gathered signatures, now claiming 2,000 members.
Vietnam’s leaders publicly ignored them while negotiating entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and readied to host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, seen as Vietnam’s debut as a new key Asian player.
Days before US President George W. Bush arrived for the November APEC summit, Washington took Vietnam off a religious freedom watch-list, and weeks later it granted it full trading rights, paving the way for WTO entry.
Human rights groups protested, pointing at the ongoing repression of some Buddhist and Christian groups.
When the APEC leaders met and a parallel business summit celebrated the birth of a new Asian Tiger, police kept Hanoi dissidents under tight lockdown.
In February, on the eve of the Tet Lunar New Year, police arrested three of Vietnam’s most prominent dissidents — Ly as well as Hanoi lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, who are to face trial soon.
HRW said Vietnam, “emboldened by international recognition,” was launching “one of the worst crackdowns on peaceful dissidents in 20 years.”
When Ly was on trial, where he was sentenced to eight years in jail, Vietnam took the unusual step of allowing foreign diplomats and media to watch.
But it earned condemnation for the swift trial, in which a guard muzzled Ly with his hand.
The open trial, meant to signal transparency, instead showed a ”throw-back to Vietnam’s communist past,” said Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy.
As pressure has mounted in the US Congress for a tougher line against Hanoi, US ambassador Michael Marine last Thursday called on Vietnam to free Ly and five other dissidents and ultimately end one-party rule.
Tension rose when police barred the wives of two key dissidents from visiting Marine’s residence in ugly scenes that the diplomat said were “at risk of spiralling out of control.”
Vietnam says it has no political prisoners and only jails criminals.
Domestically, said Thayer, it has succeeded by leaving Bloc 8406 ”in disarray and on the defensive” ahead of the May elections.
“The regime had to move to intimidate the rank and file Bloc 8406 supporters,” he said. “They have had fair sailing up to now, but now the regime has moved to take the winds out of their sails.”
Friday, April 6, 2007
O.C. lawmaker: Hanoi 'goons' accosted group
Rep. Loretta Sanchez says she saw women who were trying to meet with her stopped by Vietnamese soldiers.
By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register
Rep. Loretta Sanchez said today that she witnessed firsthand what happens to dissidents in Vietnam when a group of women who were trying to meet with her at the American ambassador's residence in Hanoi were roughed up by Vietnamese soldiers.
"We still don't know where some of them are, if they got home,'' Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, said in an interview from her hotel room. "There were about 15 goons roughing them up."
Sanchez said Ambassador Michael Marine, who had invited the women to tea at his home, tried to intercede but finally advised the women to go home because he feared for their safety.
Sanchez, who has been outspoken about human rights in Vietnam, said she believes this will be the last time the Vietnamese government will let her into the country.
"They'll never give me another visa,'' said Sanchez, who planned to spend only two days in the country. "But if they want just to think they're an open country, that they're changing, if they have nothing to hide, why not let us come in?''
Sanchez arrived in Hanoi just three hours before the scheduled tea with the Vietnamese women, many of whose husbands or other relatives she said have been jailed for their political activity.
"We started getting information that they were putting roadblocks on a lot of the roads to these women's houses,'' Sanchez said. "They sent soldiers to these women's homes. They took some of them down to the police station for interrogation. Two got arrested. Two made it through and came to the ambassador's house.''
Sanchez said she arrived at Marine's residence just as the two women did and saw the soldiers physically blocking their way from entering Marine's home.
"At one point (Marine) was physically pulling these guys off of the women. He said, 'These are women. You don't treat women like this.' ''
Sanchez is in Vietnam as part of a trip with several other members of Congress. Tomorrow, she said, the delegation will be meeting with the Vietnamese foreign minister and members of the national assembly.
She said the ambassador told her what happened at his residence "is our one and only talking point.''
One of the women trying to meet with Sanchez and the ambassador, Sanchez said, was the mother of Le Thi Cong Nhan, who at 27 is the youngest dissident to have been jailed. Sanchez said Nhan is the spokeswoman for the Vietnamese Progression Party and was jailed for her political activity.
Sanchez said that she knows that the Vietnam she is describing is not the country that Americans see when they go there as tourists.
"The tourists don't get to see the day-to-day problems that exist here,'' Sanchez said. That's why she has continued to try to visit the country, "to bring attention to the fact that this government still continues to deny people basic human rights.''
Sanchez said that while she was at Marine's residence, her congressional colleagues were touring the city and found out about what happened only when they met for dinner.
"I was educating them about the very basics,'' Sanchez said. She said she believes the government jammed the cell phone she received when she arrived there and she's had to switch phones several times. The congresswoman also believes the Vietnamese government is monitoring her calls.
She is leaving Vietnam on Friday, and when asked what she would be doing after the meeting with government officials there, she said: "I have some other things to do that I can't talk about because people are listening.''
Sanchez had planned to bring Khoi Ta, her Vietnamese political director, with her on the trip, she said, but despite a letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, asking the Vietnamese government to give him a visa, it was denied.
After she leaves Vietnam, Sanchez said, she'll be spending Easter with U.S. troops in Kuwait before returning to California next week.
By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register
Rep. Loretta Sanchez said today that she witnessed firsthand what happens to dissidents in Vietnam when a group of women who were trying to meet with her at the American ambassador's residence in Hanoi were roughed up by Vietnamese soldiers.
"We still don't know where some of them are, if they got home,'' Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, said in an interview from her hotel room. "There were about 15 goons roughing them up."
Sanchez said Ambassador Michael Marine, who had invited the women to tea at his home, tried to intercede but finally advised the women to go home because he feared for their safety.
Sanchez, who has been outspoken about human rights in Vietnam, said she believes this will be the last time the Vietnamese government will let her into the country.
"They'll never give me another visa,'' said Sanchez, who planned to spend only two days in the country. "But if they want just to think they're an open country, that they're changing, if they have nothing to hide, why not let us come in?''
Sanchez arrived in Hanoi just three hours before the scheduled tea with the Vietnamese women, many of whose husbands or other relatives she said have been jailed for their political activity.
"We started getting information that they were putting roadblocks on a lot of the roads to these women's houses,'' Sanchez said. "They sent soldiers to these women's homes. They took some of them down to the police station for interrogation. Two got arrested. Two made it through and came to the ambassador's house.''
Sanchez said she arrived at Marine's residence just as the two women did and saw the soldiers physically blocking their way from entering Marine's home.
"At one point (Marine) was physically pulling these guys off of the women. He said, 'These are women. You don't treat women like this.' ''
Sanchez is in Vietnam as part of a trip with several other members of Congress. Tomorrow, she said, the delegation will be meeting with the Vietnamese foreign minister and members of the national assembly.
She said the ambassador told her what happened at his residence "is our one and only talking point.''
One of the women trying to meet with Sanchez and the ambassador, Sanchez said, was the mother of Le Thi Cong Nhan, who at 27 is the youngest dissident to have been jailed. Sanchez said Nhan is the spokeswoman for the Vietnamese Progression Party and was jailed for her political activity.
Sanchez said that she knows that the Vietnam she is describing is not the country that Americans see when they go there as tourists.
"The tourists don't get to see the day-to-day problems that exist here,'' Sanchez said. That's why she has continued to try to visit the country, "to bring attention to the fact that this government still continues to deny people basic human rights.''
Sanchez said that while she was at Marine's residence, her congressional colleagues were touring the city and found out about what happened only when they met for dinner.
"I was educating them about the very basics,'' Sanchez said. She said she believes the government jammed the cell phone she received when she arrived there and she's had to switch phones several times. The congresswoman also believes the Vietnamese government is monitoring her calls.
She is leaving Vietnam on Friday, and when asked what she would be doing after the meeting with government officials there, she said: "I have some other things to do that I can't talk about because people are listening.''
Sanchez had planned to bring Khoi Ta, her Vietnamese political director, with her on the trip, she said, but despite a letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, asking the Vietnamese government to give him a visa, it was denied.
After she leaves Vietnam, Sanchez said, she'll be spending Easter with U.S. troops in Kuwait before returning to California next week.
Vietnam: End Attacks on Year-Old Democracy Movement
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Government Still Imprisons Writers, Religious Leaders, Rights Lawyers
(Washington, DC, April 6, 2007) – On the eve of Bloc 8406's first anniversary, members of the group, which calls for greater political freedom in Vietnam, still face harassment and abuse, including imprisonment, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Vietnamese government should end its persecution of citizens trying to exercise their rights to free expression and assembly, Human Rights Watch said.
The group's name, Bloc 8406, derives from the 8th of April 2006, when it published its "Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy." Two days earlier, it had also issued an "Appeal for Freedom of Political Association. " These documents, which were initially signed by more than 100 people, challenged the Vietnamese government to uphold individuals' rights to free expression, association, and participation in political affairs. By August 2006, an additional 2,000 people had signed the statements. Among the Bloc's founders are Father Nguyen Van Ly, an outspoken supporter of religious freedom, writer Do Nam Hai, and professor Nguyen Chinh Ket.
"Several key organizers of Bloc 8406 and their families have been harassed and imprisoned, showing that the Vietnamese government is still trying to silence its critics," said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Targeting the most vocal, visible activists sends a message to the others: don't speak out, or you'll suffer the same fate."
Five 8406 members have in the past year been sentenced to actual or suspended jail terms. On March 30, Father Ly was sentenced under article 88 of the penal code to eight years in prison for "carrying out propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam." A photo of Father Ly being physically muzzled during his trial by an out-of-uniform police officer has circulated widely. That day Nguyen Phong and Nguyen Binh Thanh were also sentenced, while Le Thi Le Hang and Hoang Thi Anh Dao received suspended sentences.
Attorneys Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan both remain in jail. Nguyen Ngoc Quang, Pham Ba Hai, Truong Quoc Huy, and Vu Hoang Hai were all arrested in August 2006 and charged under article 88. They remain in detention and have not been brought to trial.
Of grave concern is the arrest and subsequent disappearance of lawyers Le Quoc Quan, and Tran Thuy Trang. On March 8, 2007, Quan, a lawyer who had returned from a fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, was taken into custody and charged with violating article 79 of the penal code, attempting to overthrow the people's government. The day before, Trang, a young lawyer in the Ho Chi Minh City office of Quan & Brothers, was arrested by reportedly 60 security police and has not been heard from since. Her family was forced to sign documents promising not to discuss the arrest. Neither Quan nor Trang has been seen or heard from since their respective arrests.
Another founder of Bloc 8406, Do Nam Hai, has been under constant police harassment since the manifesto was circulated. Security police have ransacked his home, seized his computer, disconnected his Internet access, and forced him to appear for regular interrogations. When Hai refused to quit Bloc 8406, authorities forced his elderly parents, his sister and his daughter to come to the local police station and pressured to plead with Hai to withdraw from the democracy movement. In February 2007, Hai was one of the recipients of the prestigious Hellman/Hammett award, which honors writers who are face political persecution.
Bloc 8406 is not the only movement under threat. The government continues to harass, arrest, and impose restrictions on members of independent trade unions and unsanctioned religious groups such as ethnic minority Christians in the northern and central highlands, Mennonites, and members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV). In January, Hien Quoc Tran, spokesperson for the United Worker-Farmers Organization, an independent trade union that was formed last year, was arrested. In March authorities harassed and interrogated several Buddhist monks and a Buddhist youth leader affiliated with the UBCV Buddhist Youth Movement. In March, UBCV Buddhist monk Thich Thich Thien Mien, who formed an association of former political and religious prisoners following his release in 2005 after 26 years in prison, was called for interrogation on accusations of anti-government activities.
Authorities continue to arrest and imprison Montagnards in the Central Highlands – more than 350 of whom are currently serving sentences – for their worship in an unsanctioned Christian church and their participation in a peaceful movement calling for land rights and religious freedom.
Last month, Human Rights Watch characterized the Vietnamese government's ongoing crackdown on dissent, underway since November 2006, as the worst in 20 years.
"Since Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization, it wants to be seen as a reforming, law-abiding nation," said Richardson. "But arresting, 'disappearing, ' and harassing dissidents and their family members shows that the rhetoric doesn't match the reality."
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