LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH FROM WIFE OF JAILED DISSIDENT

UNCLAS HANOI 001144 SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MLS AND DRL/AWH SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM KIRF HUMANR PGOV PREL VM SUBJECT: LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH FROM WIFE OF JAILED DISSIDENT NGUYEN VAN DAI REF: (A) HANOI 0752 (B) HANOI 0839 (C) HANOI 0872 ¶1. (SBU) Summary and Background. On June 20, Post received a letter addressed to President Bush from Vu Minh Khanh, wife of jailed dissident Nguyen Van Dai. In the letter, Khanh asks the President to intervene on her husband's behalf during his June 22 meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet. On May 11, the GVN tried and sentenced Dai, a controversial human rights lawyer, Protestant pastor and State Department International Visitor Program alumnus, to five years in prison for "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam." (Reftels) Since Dai's imprisonment, Khanh has expressed concern about her husband's prison conditions, including inadequate food, failure to provide needed medicine and refusal to allow him a Bible. End Summary and Background. ¶2. (SBU) Begin text of letter to President Bush: The Honorable George W. Bush President, United States of America The White House Dear President Bush, From the media, I have learned that you will soon welcome Mr. Nguyen Minh Triet, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. A number of observers in Vietnam informed me that Mr. Nguyen Minh Triet is a Vietnamese leader with relatively open mind. Therefore, I am asking you to make a special appeal to Mr. Triet for the early release of my husband. My husband, lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, is symbolic of the young generation of Vietnamese, born and growing up under Communism, who have courageously stood up for the cause of democracy and human rights. My husband has engaged himself in this cause at his own risk because he cannot ignore the social injustices and human rights violations surrounding him. My husband has contacted Western embassies to seek support for his ideas; this includes the US Embassy, in issues relating to the government's oppression of Protestants. My husband was invited by the US Department of State to participate in its "Grassroots Activism in the USA" program in January-February 2006. For these reasons, the government arrested him and sentenced him on May 11 to 5 years imprisonment and 4 years probation. In my analysis, his arrest and sentence was meant as a message of threat sent to other Vietnamese, especially the generation that was born after the war, who are engaged in the fight for justice and democracy in Vietnam. Immediately after his arrest, the government-controlled media continuously propagated news and reports with the purpose of defaming my husband and isolating our family socially. At a time where we need their moral support and help, our relatives and friends, and his colleagues in the law profession hesitate to contact us due to the perceived threat from the government. In the pre-trial period, government agencies intentionally violated, rather blatantly, Vietnam's penal codes, making it impossible for my husband to defend his legal rights. The court trial was not conducted in public and was in violation of all the international basic principles of due process. With such evident violations, the government intended to show to the people that it could arbitrarily decide on the fate of all citizens, including those with ties to US diplomats in Hanoi like my husband, in total disregard of public opinion, domestic and overseas. I therefore plead with you, the President of the United States, to intervene on behalf of my husband. If thanks to your intervention my husband is released, then the Vietnamese people will understand that those who fight for democracy and human rights in Vietnam are not alone and have the protection of the international community in this struggle for justice. Otherwise, the Vietnamese government will be encouraged in their policy of oppression. I am confident that you and your administration will find an appropriate way to save and free my husband. May God bless your dialogue with President Nguyen Minh Triet. Vu Minh Khanh End text of letter. ALOISI