Free Vietnam Alliance
Press Release
March 18, 2003
Sources in Vietnam confirm that Dr. Nguyen Dan Que was arrested at 8:00pm on March 17, 2003 outside his residence. Four hours later public security officials ransacked his home, confiscating a computer, mobile phone and documents. According to Radio Free Asia, Dr. Que is being held at a Ministry of Interior detention center located at 23 Nguyen Van Cu Street in Saigon.
Just a few days earlier, on March 13, 2003, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que issued a communique calling for freedom of information in Vietnam. He protested government figures insinuating a free flow of information--486 newspapers in circulation, 80% of families listening to the radio, 70% of families watching television--by pointing out that all media in Vietnam is controlled by the state. In the communique, Dr. Que especially praised the efforts of US Representatives Ed Royce and Zoe Lofgren in sponsoring the Freedom of Information in Vietnam Act, H.R. 1019.
Dr. Nguyen Dan Que was born in 1942 in Hanoi. Following 1975, he was on several occasions jailed without trial for starting pro-democracy organizations such as the Progressive Front and the Movement for Humanity which attracted many intellectuals.
In 1991, he was sentenced to jail for twenty years, but due to international pressure on the Vietnamese government was released in September 1998. He insisted on staying in Vietnam to continue participating in the democracy movement. He has made repeated calls for democracy while also frequently denouncing the land and sea concessions made by Hanoi to Beijing in a series of secret treaties.
He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and in 2002 was awarded the prestigious Hellman-Hammet award by Human Rights Watch along with four other Vietnamese writers facing persecution: Venerable Thich Quang Do, Le Chi Quang, Nguyen Vu Binh, and Pham Hong Son.
The arrest of Dr. Nguyen Dan Que and other peaceful voices in recent months is a clear sign that Vietnam authorities are taking advantage of the international attention on war in the Perisan Gulf to crack down on domestic opposition.
The Free Vietnam Alliance calls on democratic governments, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and human rights organizations not to tolerate this policy of repression in Vietnam and to pressure the Hanoi government to release Dr. Que and other voices of conscience in prison or under house arrest.