Dissident Vietnamese poet Nguyen Chi Thien was imprisoned with Father Nguyen Van Ly at the BaSao prison at the time of this picture on July 19, 1991.  Both were adopted Prisoners of Conscience by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations.  NCT was released in November 1991 after twenty-seven total years in prison.  Because of the starvation policy of the Vietnamese Communist regime, he weighed less than 80 pounds.

Poet Thien is leading the volunteer Amnesty International USA petition campaign among Vietnamese people in Orange County and in San Jose.  He personally collected over 150 signatures at the Unified Buddhist Church of Viet Nam pagoda in Orange County on April 19, 2009.  The Northern California Vietnamese Community Association signed 300 names on the Vietnamese language petitions created for the campaign by Group 19  AIUSA in Palo Alto, California.  Over 250 more were signed at the general meeting of Amnesty International USA in Boston on March 28-29.  This action was brought by Group 19 member Samson Tu, who gave a reception in his home for Nguyen Chi Thien when he first immigrated to California in 1995.

The petition asks for the release of all political prisoners in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, specifically The Reverend Nguyen Van Ly, who has been in solitary confinement for two years since his public trial on March 30, 2007, any statement in court muzzled with the hand of a security agent.  The petition also names the UBCV Patriarch Thich Quang Do, who has been in detention at the Thanh Thien Vien Pagoda in Saigon for over twenty-five years.   

The photograph of Nguyen Chi Thien, taken by a security agent and then given to the author when he was in the prison infirmary, was the cover of his second Hoa Dia Nguc, poetry composed between 1979 and 1988 when he was in prison for the third time.  All his work --over 700 poems -- was done by memory because he was not allowed paper and pen. 

The bilingual petition campaign by Amnesty International Group 19 has a goal of 1,000 signatures for the campaign.  Already more than 700 signatures are gathered.  They will be sent to the Vietnamese government on May 1, 2009.   

The United Nations Human Rights Council periodic review of the Viet Nam takes place in Geneva on May 8, 2009.  The petitions request that Father Ly and other political prisoners be released in recognition of the UNHRC review.