{"id":750,"date":"2007-02-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-refuses-visa-for-norwegian-rights-activist\/"},"modified":"2021-12-14T11:03:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T11:03:17","slug":"vietnam-refuses-visa-for-norwegian-rights-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-refuses-visa-for-norwegian-rights-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>AFP<\/i> : Vietnam refuses visa for Norwegian rights activist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"82\" height=\"45\" src=\"https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2005\/02\/afp.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36049\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p> <span class=\"date\">Agence France Presse<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HANOI, 14 February 2007 (AFP) &#8211; Vietnam has refused to issue a visa to the head of a human rights foundation who wanted to visit the communist state to give its annual prize to a Buddhist monk, according to activists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arne Liljedahl Lynngaard, chairman of the Rafto Foundation, planned to travel to Vietnam in early March to visit Thich Quang Do, a 77-year-old monk who has been under house arrest for more than two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights said Lynngaard received a letter last week from the Vietnamese embassy in Copenhagen \u201cinforming him that a long-planned visit to Saigon\u201d to see Do \u201cis not possible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do, deputy leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, was in September awarded Rafto\u2019s annual prize for his work in promoting democracy and freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he elected not to apply to travel to Norway late last year to receive the prize, as he feared Vietnamese authorities would not allow him to return home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rafto Foundation said it chose to honour Do, a monk, researcher and author, because he had \u201cdevoted his life to the advancement of justice and the Buddhist tradition of non-violence, tolerance and compassion\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The foundation &#8212; named after Norwegian Professor Thorolf Rafto, who spent most of his life fighting for human rights &#8212; created the prize in 1986.<br>Four past recipients of the Rafto &#8212; Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, South Korea\u2019s Kim Dae-Jung and Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi &#8212; have gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Agence France Presse HANOI, 14 February 2007 (AFP) &#8211; Vietnam has refused to issue a visa to the head of a human rights foundation who wanted to visit the communist state to give its annual prize to a Buddhist monk, according to activists. Arne Liljedahl Lynngaard, chairman of the Rafto Foundation, planned to travel to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[1053,286,343,1028,671,288],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-press-review","tag-arne-lynngard","tag-forb-2","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-rafto-foundation-2","tag-thich-quang-do-2","tag-ubcv-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}