PRESS RELEASE July 6, 2006
The renowned
Vietnamese poet Nguyeãn Chí Thieän will be speaking on Little Saigon Radio on
Friday, July 7, 2006. Now an American
citizen, he is well-known world-wide. He
has just returned from a successful speaking tour of Australia, where the Vietnamese
community republished his prose Hoûa Loø Taäp
Truyeän, which were first published in 2001.
His complete poems composed in his mind while imprisoned by the
Communists in North Vietnam
for twenty-seven years, Hoa Ñòa Nguïc,
have been edited by Nguyeãn Chí Thieïn and published by East Coast USA
Vietnamese Publishers Consortium [Nguyeãn Ngoïc Bích] in April, 2006.
Last month a
Vietnamese language newspaper in Virginia, Söùøc Maáy, lifted a photo from the Yale University
website on the Internet, where it was posted to announce the presence of
Nguyeãn Chí Thieän speaking at Yale in 2005 and 2006. This photo was taken by Professor Quang Phu Vaên
at the home of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in Garden
Grove, California. It has been published on the Council for
Southeast Asia Studies website since early 2005. The Söùøc
Maáy newspaper published anonymous
material that stated Mr. Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in the USA
was not the same man pictured in the Yale
University photo and was
“the fake one.” Further, the paper
stated that the Yale University photo was taken in Vietnam rather than in the California home of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän, as
well as other photos they published which were so misrepresented. Thuan Ño, the editor of Anh Ñöông online, has negotiated an apology and retraction from the
editors of Söùøc Maáy which will be
published in the August issue.
Another photo which
taken from the Internet, was one of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän at the Ba Sao prison in
July, 1991, at the office of the Chief of Security. The newspaper acknowledged that photograph
was indeed Nguyeãn Chí Thieän, as well as the Yale University
photo. What they challenged without
factual evidence or authorship is that the person who is speaking on Little
Saigon Radio on Friday, July 7, and spoke to the International Vietnamese Youth
Conference at UCLA last Saturday, July 1, is the same person, Nguyeãn Chí
Thieän.
In order to combat
these rumors and falsifications, now in print (with anonymous authors), friends
of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in northern California
who distribute his books arranged an independent forensic analysis of three
photographs. The forensic analyst was
Gregg Stutchman, the owner of Stutchman Forensic Laboratory, Audio & Video
Forensics, Forensic Photography, in Napa,
California. The nhoùm phaùt huy tinh thaàn of Nguyeãn Chí
Thieän in BacCali who sponsored this examination to assist the author are Jean
Libby, historian and editor of Viet-Am
Review, Dieàm Tröông, student and community organizer, Anh Traàn, student
commissioner of the City of San Jose, and Professor Christopher Hoang Phaïm of
San Jose State University.
The base photo for
comparison was published on the cover of Hoa
Ñòa Nguïc, poems which he wrote in prison between 1979 and 1988, by Nguyeãn
Chí Thieän soon after he immigrated to the USA on November 1, 1995. The two digital photos in the forensic
analysis were taken in the USA
in 2004 and 2005, by two different people.
#1 The photograph of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän taken by
Professor Quang Phu Vaên of Yale University and published on the front page of Söùøc Maáy monthly magazine. Jean Libby was given a digital copy of this
photograph when she assisted Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in preparation of his English
language manuscript of the Hoûa Hoø:
Hanoi Hilton Stories which will be
published by Yale University Southeast Asia Council in 2007. Jean Libby took a photograph of Nguyeãn Chí
Thieän at Stanford University which was the recent cover of Hoa Ñòa Nguïc, the complete poems edited
by the author Nguyeãn Chí Thieän that was published by East Coast USA
Vietnamese Publishers Consortium in Arlington,
Virginia, in April, 2006. This was the third photograph used in the
forensic analysis.
From the Stutchman Forensic
Laboratory report of June 29, 2006: “The
images were opened on a lab computer using digital imaging software and
examined…. . . This lab regularly conducts forensic examination of suspect
images taken from security video systems of crimes, for analysis and
identification of class characteristics and individual characteristics in order
to identify or eliminate a suspect. The
same procedures which we use in those cases were used in the analysis and
comparison of facial and other features of the male subject contained in the
above described pictures. .. . The male in the book cover [Hoa Ñòa Nguïc 1996 edition]
shares 8 distinctive facial and ear characteristics which are present in
the man in photos #1 and #2. Based upon
my examination, comparison and analysis, it is my opinion that the man in the
photographs compared is the same person.”
Signed Gregg Stutchman, Chief Forensic Analyst.
This press release is
written by Jean Libby, editor, Viet-Am
Review
Acknowledgement with
gratitude to “Golden Pen,” Thuan Ño, for translation and negotiation with Söùøc Maáy editors and publishers.
You will find the full press release and photographs of Nguyen Chi Thien and his family in Virginia online at
http://anhduong.net/nhanvat/NguyenChiThien/JeanLibby-pressRelease.htm
