VIETNAM HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK

Mạng Lưới NHân Quyền Việt Nam

14550 Magnolia Street, Suite 203, Westminster, CA 92683

Tel.: (714) 897-1950; Email: vnhrnet@vietnamhumanrights.net

http://www.vnhrnet.org/

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

Nov. 1, 2009

 

 

Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh and Writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy

to receive 2009 Vietnam Human Rights Award  

Little Saigon 11/01/2009 – The Vietnam Human Rights Network  (VHRN) announced today the selection of Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh and Writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, among 12 candidates nominated by 12 organizations and individuals in and out of Vietnam, for 2009 Vietnam Human Rights Awards (VHRA)

VHRA was founded in 2002 with the purpose of providing recognition and support to the works of outstanding human rights activists who have made significant contributions to the cause of human rights and civil rights of the Vietnamese people as stipulated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other related international covenants. It is also an opportunity for the Vietnamese people around the world to demonstrate their solidarity with and support for those involved in this relentless fighting for basic rights and justice.

 

Since then, the VHRN has annually commended and presented the awards to the following  outstanding human rights activists in Vietnam: Most Ven. Thich Quang Do, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly, Mr. Nguyen Vu Binh, Mr. Le Chi Quang, Dr. Pham Hong Son, Mr. Nguyen Khac Toan, Mr. Pham Que Duong, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Mr. Le Quang Liem, Fr. Phan Van Loi, Ven. Thich Tue Sy, Mr. Do Nam Hai, Mr. Nguyen Chinh Ket, Mr. Hoang Minh Chinh, Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, Lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan, Ven. Thich Thien Minh, Blogger Dieu Cay Nguyen Van Hai, and Tu Do Ngon Luan Magazine.  

The VHRA includes a recognition plaque for each recipient and a total cash prize of 6,000 US dollars. This year, the VHRN cooperates with the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans in organizing the Award Presentation Ceremony at the Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Ave. NW, in Washington, DC at 2pm on December 10, 2009. The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the celebration of the 61th anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Co-sponsors of the event include: Vietnamese Community of DC-MD-VA, Boat People S.O.S. Committee, International Committee for Support of the Non-violent Movement in Vietnam, Vietnamese American Voters Association (VAVA), Voice of Vietnamese Americans (VVA), and Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam (CRFV) 

Following are brief summaries of the award recipients' accomplishments:  

1. Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, 43, born in Thua Thien  – Hue, currently a resident of Pleiku-Gia Lai Province, Deputy Head of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam, chairman of Vietnamese People’s Christian Evangelical Fellowship, and superintendent of the Mennonite churches in the Central Highlands.  He is also a member of the 8406 Bloc and of the Vietnamese Political and Religious Prisoners Friendship Association, and has been a human rights and religious freedom activist since 2001.  Pastor Nguyen has lived closely to the ethnic community in the Central Highlands since he was 14 years of age; therefore, he is intimately familiar with those people, resulting in whenever his ethnic neighbors suffer religious oppression, he always stands up to protect them regardless of whatever risks his family and himself may encounter. He has experienced 298 forced interrogations by the police, 19 brutal beatings, 86 extraditions from his local residence, 2 impositions of confiscation orders, 4 murder attempts, and 6 detentions.
His family is currently isolated and all their civic freedoms are robbed by the communist government. His house is permanently kept under tight surveillance day and night by the police.

2. Writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, 49, a teacher from 1983 to 1992, and a novelist, with 15 books published in Vietnam and 6 others overseas. She has continuously and courageously voiced her opposition to the regime, fought for the victims of injustice, written reports to denounce the communist authorities’ evils. As a result, she kept being menacingly harassed and humiliated for years. On April 21, 2007, she was arrested allegedly for spreading ‘propaganda against the Socialist Republic state.’ She was held until being brought to a closed trial by a Hanoi People’s Court. No family members, supporters or reporters were permitted to attend.  She was sentences 9 months and 10 days in prison while she was suffering diabetes, tuberculosis, and arthritis. She was released on January 31 2008, but continued to be surveilled, harassed, and threatened by stationed police and militia with different dirty tricks, particularly after she had published two books overseas and a number of political essays advocating for the victims of injustice in Thai Ha, Hung Yen. Recently, on October 8 2009, undercover police ruthlessly attacked her and her husband at her home then arrested her and accused her for assaulting and “intentionally causing injury”. Ms Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was awarded the Hellmann/Hammett prize by Human Rights Watch and invited to be a member of the International Pen Club in 2007.

 

 

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