US condemns Vietnam’s treatment of activists

HANOI, Vietnam — The United States has condemned Vietnam’s recent conviction of nine democracy activists, the arrest of a writer and the expulsion of Buddhist monks from a monastery where they practiced the teachings of a renowned Zen master.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi issued a statement saying it was “deeply disturbed” by last week’s convictions of the activists, several of whom hung pro-democracy statements over highway overpasses.

“The activists were simply expressing their views peacefully and posed no threat to Vietnam’s national security,” the embassy said in the statement released Thursday night.

Vietnam has come under frequent criticism from Western governments and activist groups for its human rights record. The country’s communist government does not tolerate challenges to its single-party rule.

The U.S. Embassy also said it was concerned about the arrest of Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, a writer who publicly expressed her support for the activists.

“No individual should be beaten, arrested or jailed for exercising the right to free speech,” the statement said.

Like the activists, Thuy was previously convicted of violating Article 88 of Vietnam’s criminal code, which broadly prohibits “conducting propaganda against the state.”

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said in a statement that the information the U.S. embassy provided about the individuals was “completely erroneous.”

Nga also said the embassy’s demands for the release of those convicted and other prisoners who were jailed for peacefully expressing their views constituted “interference in Vietnam’s internal affairs.”

The nine were prosecuted and convicted in accordance with Vietnamese laws, she added.

The embassy statement contradicted Vietnam’s description of events at Bat Nha monastery in Lam Dong province, from which followers of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh were evicted on September 27.

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry has said the eviction was nonviolent and that police ensured the safety of the monks and nuns. But the embassy described the expulsion of the monks as “violent” and decried the Vietnamese government’s “failure to protect them from assault.”

The embassy said the government’s actions in all three cases “contradict Vietnam’s own commitment to internationally accepted standards of human rights and the rule of law.”

Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese born, France-based Buddhist who has popularized Buddhism in the west and sold millions of books worldwide. He was expelled from South Vietnam during the war and has lived in exile for four decades.