Free Vietnam Alliance
Press Release, May 6, 1998
In the last 2 weeks, the Vietnamese authorities have escalated its campaign of terror on Vietnamese dissidents to an alarming degree.
In the city of Dalat city, using the pretext of Directive 31/CP, which authorizes local Public Security cadres to detain up to two years any suspected citizens without trials, Hanoi authorities have further tightened their grips around the three intellectual dissidents Ha Si Phu, Tieu Dao Bao Cu, and Bui Minh Quoc. After the poem collection "Poetic Flashes in the Interrogation Chamber" by Mr. Quoc found its way across and out of Vietnam last month, Public Securities cadres forced their way into his residence, ransacked the place, and took away most of his writings and reading materials. In the following days, the poet was interrogated at the local Public Securities office from early morning to after sunset each day.
Like Ha Si Phu's and Tieu Dao Bao Cu's, Bui Minh Quoc's family is being deliberately pressed down to their knees with the severe isolation and intimidation by an ever-larger pool of Public Securities cadres around their house. Everyone going to and from the residence is physically searched and harassed. Such tactics have successfully kept away most visitors and buyers of the hand-carved dolls in Vietnamese traditional costumes his family make. This is their only means to earn a living.
Also for the poem collection "Poetic Flashes in the Interrogation Chamber" by Bui Minh Quoc, geologist Nguyen Thanh Giang, another well-known dissident in Hanoi, was detained on his way south for a charity event. The communist authorities tried to charge Mr. Giang with illegal dissemination of Bui Minh Quoc's poems but let him go four days later after this geologist protested with a hunger strike.
In Saigon, on May 03, 1998 dissident writer Nguyen Ngoc Lan was critically injured in a staged traffic accident. On that day, Mr. Lan was carrying Father Chan Tin on his motorcycle en route to the funeral of dissident Nguyen Van Tran, the author of the book "Writing to Mothers and the National Assembly". They were followed as soon as they emerged from the Church of Our Savior, where Father Chan Tin resided. These followers later surrounded and kicked the front wheel of Mr. Lan's motorcycle, sending both riders violently to the ground. The attackers then quickly disappeared. Father Chan Tin received a number of scratches and bruises while Nguyen Ngoc Lan suffered a cracked shoulder blade and critical head injuries.
In the same period, Hanoi also intensified its measures of isolation on the political and religious dissidents already in their labor camps and prisons. Even the occasional family visits are now banned indefinitely. The family of Professor Doan Viet Hoat was told of the news after they reached the gate of the Thanh Cam prison camp near the Vietnam-Laos border. The authorities have imposed similar policy on Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Ven. Thich Huyen Quang, Ven. Thich Quang Do, and Ven. Thich Khong Tanh.
All of these incidents again illustrate the inhuman characteristics of the Vietnamese communist regime, aiming at an elimination of all voices opposite to the Vietnamese Communist Party's views. This is clearly state-sponsored terrorism, carried out by the Hanoi authorities to prolong its totalitarian rule over Vietnam.
The Free Vietnam Alliance strongly condemns the escalation of terrorism by Hanoi on its own citizens and urgently calls on all freedom and democracy-loving countries in the world, and all international organizations for human rights to use your influences to put an end to the campaign of terror by the Vietnamese communist authorities.
The Free Vietnam Alliance also calls on all Vietnamese and anyone who cherish peace and justice to do your best in supporting the dissidents and their families in Vietnam. Only with your spiritual and physical support, can they overcome the current severe challenges for the ultimate goal of freedom and democracy in Vietnam.