Urgent Action Needed for Le Thi Cong Nhan, Progression Party -- plea to write U.S. Deputy Secretary Negroponte in China and Vietnam January 16 - 20.
Deputy Secretary Negroponte: Travel to China
and Vietnam
Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte will travel to China and Vietnam January 16 – 20 for
discussions with his counterparts on a broad range of bilateral and global
issues.
In China,
the Deputy Secretary will lead an interagency delegation to participate in the fifth
round of the semi-annual U.S.-China Senior Dialogue, our premier bilateral
forum focused on strategic and political issues.
In Vietnam,
the Deputy Secretary will have bilateral discussions with his counterparts in
the Vietnamese Government.
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Notice of Le Thi Cong Nhan movement to Prison 5 in Thanh Hoa
Province:
Urgent Action Needed
We respectfully address:
- Congresses and Governments of Democratic Countries.
- Foreign Embassies in Hanoi.
- Human Rights International Organizations.
- International and Domestic Public Opinion.
Việt Nam
- Germany,
January 8, 2008
Dear Sir/Madam,
Sharing the same
fate as other Vietnamese Human Rights activists in the country, the young Human
Rights female lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan (28 years) was arrested right after Vietnam
was admitted into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in January 2007. On May 11, 2007, she was
sentenced by the Hanoi Communist regime to 4 years of prison and 4 years of
house arrest because of „Propaganda against the socialist government ".
Due to protests from Human Rights organizations and Overseas-Vietnamese
world-wide, a court of appeal subsequently reduced the sentence to 3 years of
prison and 3 years of house arrest.
Recently, to
protest against the imprisonment conditions under which she has been held
together with some 38 criminal prisoners and was tormented from these
prisoners, Lawyer Le has started on December 27, 2007 a hunger strike and thereafter she was
moved on January 3, 2008
from Hanoi to
province Thanh-Hoa. On the way to the new prison she became unconscious. The
Bible, her only consolation source in the prison, which the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) handed her on their
visit in the Hanoi prison in October 2007, was confiscated by the prison guard
after her arrival in the new prison (Prison Number 5 of the province Thanh-Hoa).
She is in the new prison room in Thanh-Hoa together with about 60 criminal
prisoners and sleeps on the hard ground without bed and mattress.
As the detention of
Lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan is a grave violation of human rights from the Hanoi communist regime and
in view of her present fragile health condition, we beg you make a visit to
this prisoner of conscience in the prison and demand the Government of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam to release her immediately and unconditionally.
Yours faithfully,
Vietnam Progression Party
UPDATE! This is an eloquent plea from John E. Carey, writer based in Washington D.C.,
Address your letter:
The Honorable John D.
Negroponte, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State
Public Communication Division
PA/PL, Rm. 2206
U.S.
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C.
20520
1-202-647-6575
Email through: http://contact-us.state.gov/
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To Fax or write the American Embassy in Hanoi:
The Honorable
Michael W. Michalak
U.S. Ambassador to the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam
Please send a fax to 011-84-4-850-5010, or write to:
American Embassy Hanoi
PSC 461, BOX 400, FPO AP 96521-0002
