Vietnam Falungong jailed over China broadcasts

This picture taken by the Vietnam News Agency shows Vu Duc Trung (C, first row), and Le Van Thanh (C, second row) (AFP/Vietnam News Agency)

AFP

HANOI — Vietnam on Thursday jailed two Falungong practitioners for beaming radio broadcasts into China, their lawyer said, where the movement is banned and labelled an "evil cult".

Vu Duc Trung, 31, received a three-year sentence and his brother-in-law Le Van Thanh, 36, was sentenced to two years, said the lawyer, Tran Dinh Trien.

The hearing in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi lasted about half a day.

The pair were charged in connection with "Sound of Hope" programmes transmitted into China via shortwave radio starting in April 2009, according to the Falungong's press office, the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York.

Vietnam Upholds 7-Year Jail Term for Prominent Dissident

Cu Huy Ha Vu (C) attending his appeal trial at the People's Supreme court housein Hanoi (AFP/VNA)

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011
Voice of America

An appeals court in Vietnam has upheld the 7-year prison sentence for the dissident son of one of Vietnam's founding revolutionaries.

Defendant Cu Huy Ha Vu, a human rights lawyer educated in France, had argued that his calls for political pluralism were not intended to undermine Vietnam's communist government. He said he only demanded a multi-party system aimed at fostering political competition.

Ahead of Tuesday's ruling, prosecutors had argued that Vu's actions violated national security and abused freedom of speech.

All aboard North Korea's refugee railroad

Aug 3, 2011
By Sebastian Strangio
Asia Times Online

In the cable, however, Om Yentieng "did register some concern over the PM's safety due to the proximity of the North Korean Embassy [which is next door] to the PM's residence" should Cambodian cooperation on the refugee issue become public.

PHNOM PENH - In late November 2006, after a long, perilous journey from northeast China, a North Korean national crossed the Vietnamese frontier into Cambodia's northeast Mondulkiri province. The man, identified only as Ly Hai Long in local media reports, was promptly arrested by Cambodian police, who told a reporter from the Cambodia Daily that they had deported him to Vietnam.

Recently leaked cables from the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, part of a cache of 777 dispatches released last month by anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, tell a different story. According to one cable (06PHNOMPENH2072) from the same month, Ly Hai Long was secretly allowed to remain in Cambodia. The South Korean ambassador to Cambodia confirmed to United States officials "that his government would be working quietly with the RGC [Royal Government of Cambodia] to ensure that the North Korean is moved to South Korea".

Thamrongsak Meechubot, then head of the office of the United Nations refugee agency in Phnom Penh, told US officials he was "not surprised" that Cambodian police had leaked information about the man's deportation. The implication was that the rumor was used to provide a cover of secrecy to his transfer to the South. Thamrongsak said it was a tactic that had been used by the Cambodians before.

Vietnam dissident calls for reforms during appeal

Cu Huy Can

August 2, 2011
Associated Press

his father was "one of the people who gave birth to this regime that is putting me on trial today." - Cu Huy Ha Vu

HANOI, Vietnam—The dissident son of one of Vietnam's founding revolutionaries proclaimed his innocence during an appeals trial Tuesday, saying he's not against the Communist Party but supports a multiparty system.

French-educated lawyer Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, is appealing a seven-year prison sentence received in April for conducting propaganda against the state.

He has asked the court to dismiss his case, saying he did nothing wrong and that his trial was a conspiracy against him. But prosecutors seeking to uphold the sentence said Tuesday that Vu's actions have violated national security and abused freedom of the press and speech to oppose the state.

"I did not oppose the Communist Party of Vietnam. I only demanded a multiparty system that would allow healthy competition for the ultimate interests of the people and of the nation," Vu told the court.

Cuban, Asian Groups Discuss Evils of Communism

Oct 22, 2007
By James Fish
Special to The Epoch Times

Delegates from several Asian and Cuban human rights, social justice, and pro-democracy organizations met in a Miami hotel conference room on October 20 for an historic forum discussing a common problem: totalitarian communist regimes oppressing the populations of those nations.

The meeting of the Southeast Asian Democracy League, hosted by the Cuban Liberty Council, marked the first time that the four largest Cuban expatriate organizations got together; and also the first time that the Cuban groups coordinated with groups from other nations, to support a common cause: the removal of all militarily-imposed totalitarian communist dictatorships and the return to liberty and self-determination for all peoples around the world.

The Southeast Asia Democracy League includes the Bangladesh Democracy League, the Sam Rainsy Party from Cambodia, the Force of Vietnamese People for Freedom and Democracy, and the Government of Laos Abroad. All of these groups represent nations that have been conquered by communist or totalitarian regimes.

The Cuban Liberty Council is a U.S.-based organization committed to promoting liberty and democracy in Cuba. Founded by Cuban expatriates, many of who escaped from Castro's prisons and made the perilous crossing to America to save their own lives, the CLC was established in 2001 to support and promote the efforts of the Cuban exile community and also opposition parties inside Cuba.

Joining the CLC were the Municipios de Cuba en el Exilio, the Cuban Political Prisoners Council, and the Junta Patriotica Cubana. These four organizations represent the majority of Cubans that wish to see Cuba freed from Communism.

By combining their resources, knowledge, and experience, the Cuban groups and the Southeast Asia Democracy League hope to increase their effectiveness in all aspects of their shared journey towards a world free of the scourge of communism.

Tales of Persecution

After introductions, the various groups explained their efforts and missions. Each speaker described the suffering inflicted upon his or her nation by communist regimes.

Dr. Charles Chang, Prime Minister of the Government of Laos abroad (GOAL) described how the communist Pathet Lao took over Laos in 1975. Because the United States recruited Lao males, particularly the Hmong people, to fight against communism during the Vietnam War, the Pathet Lao targeted the Hmong for elimination. The United Nations has accepted that the persecution of the Hmong qualifies as genocide. Amnesty International has stated that the atrocities committed by the Lao military involving Hmong children constitute war crimes.

Dr. Chang explained that Vietnam, also a communist state, is cooperating with the Lao regime in hunting down and killing Hmong in Laos. About 8000 Hmong escaped to Thailand, where they live in refugee camps. Many of these people have been denied refugee status, which is their right under U.N. laws, and have been repatriated to Laos, where they face more persecution.

Dr. Muhammed Chowdhurry, President of the Bangladesh Democracy League, explained that while the totalitarian dictatorship that rules Bangladesh is not communist, the repression suffered by the Bangladeshi people is equally unjust. This common suffering led the Bangladesh Democracy League to join forces with the Force of Vietnamese People for Freedom and Democracy, and then to join the Southeast Asia Democracy League.

According to Dr. Chowdhurry, in Bangladesh the military dictatorship operates behind the scenes, arresting dissidents and terrorizing the Bangladeshi people, while claiming to be merely ensuring the stability of the country until a civilian government can form. However, the popular political leaders are all in jail, making free and fair elections impossible.

Dr. Chowdhurry said he was confident that by combining forces these organizations would speed the day when the oppressed people of the world could enjoy liberty, human rights, and justice.

The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong was invited to the meeting to describe some of the human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Falun Gong practitioners in China. As the CIPFG spokesperson explained, one of CIPFG's primary missions is publicizing the CCP's practice of removing organs from living Falun Gong practitioners to supply the CCP's lucrative transplant industry. Former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas released a comprehensive report indicating that more than 40,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed to supply organs for transplant.

Throughout the eight-year-long persecution, the CCP has arrested, imprisoned and tortured millions of Falun Gong practitioners The CCP has also flooded China and the rest of the world with propaganda justifying its brutal behavior. Meanwhile, the CCP persecutes pro-democracy groups, Muslims, Christians, labor organizers, and others.

CIPFG has started a Human Rights Torch Relay, an international campaign to bring an end to all human rights abuses against people in China while highlighting the persecution of Falun Gong, capitalizing on the attention China has attracted by hosting the 2008 Olympic Games.

The CIPFG spokesperson explained that the CCP is the largest communist dictatorship in the world; when it falls, many other repressive and violent regimes that depend on its support will also fall.

Cuba has suffered under communist rule for 48 years. Political activity other than that supporting the communist regime is an arrestable offense, and Cuban prisons are full of prisoners of conscience serving indeterminate sentences. The Cuban Political Prisoners Council sent three delegates who, between them, had spent sixty years in prisons.

CLC publications show that the Cuban regime of the Castro brothers has, in the fashion of totalitarian dictators everywhere, kept the people poor while increasing their own wealth. While most Cubans have little health care, Cuba boasts one of the finest healthcare systems in the world—available to Party leaders and tourists only. Cubans have no right of political self-determination nor do they have free enterprise. Cuba has no free press, no freedom of belief, and no right to assemble; in the eyes of the government, the Cuban people exist only to support the communist leadership.

While maintaining its stranglehold on Cuba, the Castro regime also uses spies to harass Cuban expatriates who work for their homeland, and also to interfere with U.S. elected officials and the U.S. military.

Speaking on behalf of the assembled Cuban human rights and liberation groups, CLC Director Diego Suárez said, "Together, we will obtain democracy and freedom for all the countries here represented."

The Force of Vietnamese People for Democracy existed underground for many years, and was formally incorporated in 2004. It is pledged to bring freedom and democracy to Vietnam through peaceful means. This group's delegates included Montagnards, an ethnic minority that helped the United States during the Vietnam War and is now persecuted by the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP.)

Spokesperson Terri Vu explained that while Vietnam shows an annual 8 percent growth in GDP, it is among the poorest nations in the world because the VCP takes all the profits for itself. She spoke of young girls who did not dare dream of marrying the man of their choice, because so many girls are sold into slavery and human trafficking rings. Vietnam has no religious freedom, no free press, and no political freedom.

Combining Forces to Vanquish Injustice

A theme that ran through the meeting was that each group shared common problems, and that each group brought manpower, experience, wisdom, and innovations that, if combined, could aid all the other groups in achieving their shared goal of eliminating communist and totalitarian dictatorships and the associated crimes against humanity which plague their various homelands.

While some groups had experience in establishing NGOs, or lobbying the United Nations, others were well versed in political lobbying; other groups had experience in staging large public events. The various groups realized that their campaigns were best waged on all of these fronts; that diplomatic and political pressure, media attention, and popular opinion all needed to be mobilized against the communist dictatorships that are violating the human rights of so many millions, and that cooperation and sharing resources could lead to new ideas, new methods, and a perfection of existing efforts that would ultimately lead to success: the peaceful transition from brutal totalitarian dictatorship to free and open societies wherein human rights could flourish.

NKorea Begins Erecting Fence

08.26.07
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has started building a fence along parts of its border with China in an apparent move to prevent people from fleeing the impoverished communist country, a news report said Sunday.

The North has put posts on a six-mile stretch along a narrow tributary of the Yalu River, which marks the border between North Korea and China. It has also built a road to guard the area, Yonhap news agency reported. The North has yet to string barbed wire fencing between the posts, the report said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report.

Less than a year ago, China built a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along its side of the same river.

North Korea and China share an 880-mile border.

Most of China's trade and aid to the North, on which North Korea heavily relies on, moves across the border. Up to 90 percent of the North's oil supplies also come across the border from China.

China had left their border lightly guarded but it has became a security concern for Beijing in the past decade as tens of thousands of North Korean refugees began trickling across into northeast China.

Many of the refugees take a long and risky land journey through China to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries on their way to eventual asylum in South Korea.

More than 10,000 North Koreans have defected to the South, with most arriving in recent years.

The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two technically still at war.

Anti-Hanoi protest in front of the White House

Demonstrators protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Friday, June 22, 2007, as Nguyen Minh Triet, the president of Vietnam was to meet with President Bush. (Photos: AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Political Cartoon: Free Tibet, Cambodia and Laos

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

The magic of 'Doi Moi' reforms or the tyranny of 'Doi Moi' oppressions?

The magic of 'Doi Moi' reforms

Saturday June 02, 2007
UMESH PANDEY
Bangkok Post

Developed Asean members should assist newer members with economic reforms, says Vietnam's deputy prime minister.

"What we need is the mutual support of members to narrow the development gap between member states," said Pham Gla Khiem.

Vietnam, which is the region's leader in terms of economic and stock-market growth, says it is continuing with economic reforms.

Vietnam's "Doi Moi" (renovation) reform policy - aimed at liberalising the communist economy while maintaining the government's authoritarian grip - has brought rapid economic growth. In 2006, the country grew at 8.2%, and 2007 growth is expected to reach 8.5%.

Mr Khiem says the government will continue with its reforms while maintaining socialist policies.

"What we have right now is an open-market policy that has a socialist face and this is our slogan too," he said. "We need socialist ways in order to care for the under privileged."

Mr Khiem said that these policies ensure that the rural masses benefit from the market economy. Vietnam, he said, would continue to liberalise its rules and regulations. He said that Vietnam is gradually phasing out old laws such as the 49% foreign-ownership restriction, and amending laws to conform to the norms of the World Trade Organisation.

"We need some time to adjust and it could take between five and six years, which we call as transition phase, but once this is done we will be far freer than today," Mr Khiem said.

Vietnam joined Asean in 1995, and attracted $10.2 billion in foreign direct investment in 2006.

"We will create a level playing field for all parties, be it domestic or foreign players, and create favourable conditions foreign direct investment," the deputy prime minister said.

The aim, he said, was to transform Vietnam into a middle-income country in five years and to achieve industrialised status by 2020.

He said that the country's abundant young and educated population would act as the catalyst for growth. Seventy-five percent of the population, he says, is younger than 40 years old and the population is set to grow to 100 million in 10 years from now from the current 85 million.

As part of this process, Mr Khiem said, the country had embarked on a major revamping of its state-owned enterprises, and more than 3,500 companies have undergone management changes to increase efficiency. The country will also privatise some state-owned enterprises over the coming years and hopes to complete the process by 2010.

"When we undertook the Doi Moi reforms, we were in the corner. China had implemented its open-door policy and the East Asian tigers were roaring, what we intended to do was to transform our subsidised economy a free-market economy," he said.

How to fight the oppressive communist Vietnamese regime: the Viet Tan case, a thorn in Hanoi's side

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 (California, USA)

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What is Paltalk?
Paltalk is a Web-based text, voice and video-chatting service used by many anti-Communist activists in Vietnam and around the world. In December, Viet Tan organized its first live online conference, which linked a candlelight vigil in Westminster's Sunken Gardens to other events in Vietnam, Europe and Australia to coincide with International Human Rights Day.
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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