HANOI Vietnam, April 10, 2007 (AP) – One of Vietnam\u2019s leading dissidents is disappointed that U.S. President George W. Bush has not taken a stronger stance against the communist government\u2019s human rights abuses, a Buddhist organization said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Thich Quang Do, a dissident monk who lives under virtual house arrest, met with a U.S. State Department representative Monday. He told the official that Bush should have raised the human rights issue when he visited Vietnam last fall, according to the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau, which speaks for Do\u2019s outlawed church.<\/p>\n
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Eric G. John had a rare meeting with Do, deputy of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, at his Ho Chi Minh City monastery.<\/p>\n
According to the Buddhist group, Do\u2019s \u201chopes had been dashed\u201d<\/i> because Bush didn\u2019t publicly raise human rights issues when he came to Hanoi for an Asia-Pacific economic summit in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that all people living under tyranny, not just in Vietnam but in North Korea, Burma and elsewhere, shared this disappointment in the U.S.A.,\u201d<\/i> the group quoted Do as saying.<\/p>\n
Do called on the U.S. to link its economic policies to human rights and use trade as leverage over Hanoi. Trade between the two nations has boomed since they implemented a bilateral trade deal in 2001.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters in Hanoi on Tuesday, John confirmed that he met with Do but wouldn\u2019t elaborate.<\/p>\n
John said the U.S.-Vietnam relationship is growing closer and that the U.S. is \u201cvery optimistic\u201d<\/i> about their future ties, but stressed it has ongoing concerns about Vietnam\u2019s human rights performance.<\/p>\n
Vietnam has recently cracked down on dissidents, arresting two Hanoi human rights lawyers and sentencing a Catholic priest to eight years in prison after he tried to establish a pro-democracy political group.<\/p>\n
Last week, the situation escalated when Hanoi police blocked the wives of several dissidents from attending a tea at U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine\u2019s residence with U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat.<\/p>\n
John said he had raised the crackdown during his meetings with Vietnamese officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cVietnam has reached a level of development where it should be confident enough to allow the space necessary for a greater political discourse,\u201d<\/i> he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem logical to me or to the U.S. government that it would imprison people for trying to contribute to that political discourse.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
John, whose territory includes East Asia and the Pacific, came to Vietnam as part of his regularly scheduled visits to the region.<\/p>\n
In addition to human rights, John and his hosts discussed regional security and trade issues.<\/p>\n
HANOI Vietnam, April 10, 2007 (AP) – One of Vietnam\u2019s leading dissidents is disappointed that U.S. President George W. Bush has not taken a stronger stance against the communist government\u2019s human rights abuses, a Buddhist organization said Tuesday. Thich Quang Do, a dissident monk who lives under virtual house arrest, met with a U.S. State …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"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":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-press-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","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\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}