A Freedom for Vietnam Rally was held in the rain in San Jose, California, on April 21.  Two of the keynote speakers were former political prisoners in Vietnam, Nguyen Chi Thien (held in Communist prisons for twenty-seven years) and Ly Tong (recently released from a seven-year sentence in Thailand for dropping leaflets over Saigon).  Pictured next to Freedom Pilot Ly Tong is the Assemblyman from Garden  Grove, California, Van Tran, who was instrumental in gaining the release of Ly Tong from Thailand after serving his sentence instead of being extradited to Communist Vietnam.  Mr. Ly Tong is a U.S. citizen. 

Dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien spoke from his long experience as a prisoner and the recent move of Father Nguyen Van Ly to the Ba Sao prison in the Ha Nam Province in northern Vietnam, which is 300 miles from Hue, where Father Ly is a Catholic priest.  Mr. Thien was also imprisoned at Ba Sao in 1991, along with many South Vietnamese officers sent there after the military invasion of South Vietnam in 1975.  It is the practice of the Communist regime to move prisoners into remote areas far from their homes.