Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a democracy activist, his wife said yesterday, ahead of an ASEAN summit at which US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been urged to raise human rights concerns.
Vi Duc Hoi, 54, a former communist official, was arrested on Wednesday at his family home in northern Lang Son Province bordering China, said his wife, Hoang Thi Tuoi.
“My husband told me he was arrested for the charge of propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ... The police took away his computer and mobile phone,” she said.
Upon conviction, the charge carries a maximum 20 year prison term.
She said her husband worked as a district official, including head of a local propaganda department and was a Communist Party member for three decades until he resigned to become a democracy activist.
Tuoi said that, as far as she knew, her husband had written articles “about general anti-corruption issues.”
His arrest came as US lawmakers on Wednesday called on Clinton to raise human rights with Vietnam during her visit to the country which is schedule to begin today.
The latest appeal was led in part by Representative Loretta Sanchez.
She and three other members of the US Congress asked Clinton to “raise specific cases and demand actual progress” when she meets Vietnamese leaders on the sidelines of a summit between leaders of ASEAN and other countries in the region.
“We encourage you to take the opportunity to make human rights a cornerstone of US-Vietnam policy and to demonstrate America’s support for the basic freedoms of the Vietnamese people,” they wrote.
In a similar letter, Senator Barbara Boxer of California asked Clinton to “urge the Vietnamese government to immediately release all prisoners detained for peaceful advocacy of their beliefs.”
The lawmakers sent the letters just as Vietnam, in two separate cases, convicted three labor -activists and six Catholic villagers. The labor activists were jailed for between seven and nine years.
In a separate case, which sparked concern from the US embassy, the six villagers were arrested after a clash in May between residents and a large group of police in Con Dau Catholic parish, near the central city of Danang, said residents.
Three US Congressmen alleged the villagers had been tortured and asked top Vietnamese leaders to intervene and consider granting their unconditional and immediate release.
Britain-based global rights watchdog Amnesty International on Wednesday said Vietnam must “stop this needless crackdown on government critics and peaceful activists.”
It condemned the “harsh” sentences given to the trio of labor activists and said the continuing arrests of activists and bloggers “paint an increasingly bleak picture of freedom of expression and association in Vietnam.”
US-based Human Rights Watch called for Clinton to speak out against an “intensifying campaign of harassment, arrests, beatings in custody, unfair trials, and long prison terms” against peaceful bloggers, community activists and others in Vietnam during her visit.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS