Rice asked to intervene over Vietnamese-American's arrest
8 September 2006
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Vietnamese-American advocacy group has urged US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to seek the release of an American pro-democracy activist held in Hanoi, saying the arrest sent a "chilling message" to other US citizens.
Vietnam's communist government on Thursday confirmed the detention last month of Cong Thanh Do, a Californian computer engineer, but declined to say why he was being held.
"The unwarranted detainment of Cong Thanh Do, a US citizen, sends a chilling message to all Americans who wish to visit or do business in Vietnam," Baoky N. Vu, an official of the Vietnamese-American Public Affairs Committee, said in a letter to Rice Thursday.
The committee strives to increase the participation of Vietnamese Americans in the American political process.
"We respectfully ask that you call on the Vietnamese government to immediately release" him, Vu told Rice in the letter, a copy of which was sent to AFP.
Do's relatives said he was detained on August 14 in Vietnam's southern city of Phan Thiet, accused of conspiring to launch a terrorist attack against the US consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.
The 47-year Vietnamese-American last Friday told US officials who visited him at a police detention centre that he was a senior member of the banned People's Democratic Party of Vietnam, seeking non-violent political change.
He also told them he would start a hunger strike that day that would last until his freedom or his death, his family said.
The US government said it had seen no evidence Do had planned a terrorist attack against US interests in the Vietnamese city.
Vu said Do was a human rights activist and "professes no tendencies of violence.
"Even more ludicrous are the accusations by the authorities that he was plotting to attack the US consulate, his own diplomatic refuge," Vu said.
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the terrorism claim "a bizarre accusation which does not appear to be based on any real facts".
Vu said the incident underscored "the harassment and persecution that many Vietnamese citizens desiring freedom face every day" and urged
President George W. Bush to push Hanoi to embrace democracy, when he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi in November.
Zoe Lofgren, a legislator with the US House of Representatives, said the arrest was "unprecedented."
This was the first time a US citizen was being held in Vietnam solely because of his pro-democratic, non-violent views, said California Representative Lofgren. "His incarceration is outrageous."
There are about 1.5 million Vietnamese-Americans in the United States who are an influential force during elections.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060908/pl_afp/usvietnamrights_060908080537