Vietnamese Police Attack U.S. Official
Jan.
5, 2011
– The United States has lodged a “strong protest” with the
Vietnamese government after policemen attacked an American diplomat while
barring him from meeting with a dissident Catholic priest in central Vietnam.
Christian
Marchant, a political officer with the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, was roughed up
outside the home for retired priests in Hue where Nguyen Van Ly, 63, is
being held under house arrest after being released from jail on medical parole
last year.
“We
are aware of and deeply concerned by the incident and have officially
registered a strong protest with the Vietnamese government in Hanoi,” a
State Department official told RFA.
“We
plan to raise the issue with (Vietnamese) Ambassador Phung in Washington today
as well,” the official said.
“Diplomats
are entitled under international law to special protection against attack. The
government of Vietnam has a responsibility to take appropriate steps to prevent
any attack on the person, freedom, or dignity of diplomats,” the official
explained.
Ly,
One of Vietnam's high-profile human rights activists, told RFA that the
incident Wednesday was witnessed by hundreds of people.
“They
all saw police's brutality toward Mr. Marchant,” he said.
“They
reported that he was wrestled down to the ground right in the middle of the
road. His clothes got dirty. He stood back up and flicked off the dust.”
Asked
for his account of the incident, Ly said, “I saw him standing, not lying
on the ground but he looked really strenuously tired.”
Ly,
who was released from prison in March, 2010, five years before the end of his
eight-year sentence for disseminating anti-government propaganda, said the
six-foot tall Marchant raised his camera high to take a picture but a policeman
prevented him.
“I
heard him say that I was a prisoner, he could not allow (the) visit.”
Ly
said Marchant was bundled into a police car and taken away.
“The
embassy officer exchanged words loudly with the police and they pushed and
pulled him to a police car...he yelled out very loud and resisted hard but they
put him in the car, closed the doors and drove away.”
Citizen
journalists told RFA about 30 to 40 policemen blocked the entrance to
Ly’s home as Marchant, accompanied by a Vietnamese interpreter, went to
meet with Ly at about 10 a.m.
Ly
had suffered two strokes in 2009 when he was in solitary confinement that left
him partly paralyzed, and Western governments had repeatedly demanded to the
Vietnamese government that he be freed.
Nguyen
Van Ly, 63, suffered two strokes in 2009 that left him partly paralyzed, and
Western governments had demanded repeatedly that he be freed.
His
trial grabbed world headlines as he tried to read out a poem criticizing
Vietnam's communist authorities and was muzzled by police.
He
has spent more than 15 years in prison since 1977.
His
release from prison last year came after a group of US senators wrote to
Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet, calling for his freedom.
The
Roman Catholic Father Ly, a founding member of Bloc 8406, a pro-democracy movement,
was a thorn in the side of the ruling Communist Party, as he advocated greater
human rights in the one-party state.
Reported
by Thao Dao of RFA’s Vietnamese service and Richard Finney. Translated by
Viet Nguyen. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.
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