As part of his tour of Australia, the US and Europe, Professor Nguyen Chinh Ket, right, paid a visit to both HRHF and the Oslo Human Rights House and the Rafto Human Rights House in Bergen earlier this month. This article tells the story of his life as a democracy and human rights defender. After leaving his homeland, an arrest order has been issued on Chinh Ket. (27-MAR-07)

Chinh Ket is currently touring Europe, having already spent time both in Australia and in the US, rallying support for the democracy movement inside Vietnam. Despite the arrest order, he is determined to return to Vietnam after this trip to continue the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Personal information: 
Prof. Nguyen Chinh Ket was born in 1952. His family migrated from North Vietnam to the South when Vietnam was divided, in 1954. He studied at St. Pius X Pontifical College, a well known seminary in South Vietnam, and at the University of Da-Lat. 
In 1978, he left the priesthood and returned to Saigon. He remains active serving the Catholic Church in numerous capacities, has published many books and articles on Christian theology and also taught for many years at different seminaries in Saigon.

Call for Freedom of Religion: 
In 2000, after Father Nguyen Van Ly renewed the struggle for religious freedom in Vietnam by igniting a month’s long protest at his parish, Mr. Nguyen Chinh Ket began to voice his support for Father Ly and his call for freedom of religion. Since then, he has been fighting tirelessly for human rights and democracy in Vietnam. Because of his activities, since 2001, he has been targeted by the Vietnamese Security Forces. He suffered numerous detentions, around the clock surveillance, constant harassments, and countless searches at his house as well as being denied all opportunity to hold a job to support his family. Despite the harsh treatment by the government, he remains resolute in his quest for freedom and democracy. Because of his courage and efforts, he becomes a prominent leader of the pro-democracy movement inside Vietnam.

Involvements in Bloc 8406 and the Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights for Vietnam:  
In April 2006, he was among the top leaders of Bloc 8406, a group that released the infamous Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy which ignited the recent waves of challenges against the communist government. 
In October 2006, he and a number of other prominent leaders founded the Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights for Vietnam which quickly becomes the forefront pro-democracy force in Vietnam. 
In December 2006, he was granted a visa to enter the United States to receive the 2006 Viet Nam Human Rights Award, but in anticipating that the Vietnamese government would not permit him to leave the country. He had to escape to neighboring Cambodia before making his way to San Francisco on 20/12/06.

Recent related articles on Prof Nguyen Chinh Ket and his works:
Democracy activists in Vietnam sense an opening • Los Angeles Times

As Bush prepares to visit, pro-democracy efforts gain tolerance, a hint that the regime’s iron grip is slipping. By John M. Glionna Times Staff Writer
November 12, 2006

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM — Tran Ngoc Ha crouched on a small blue plastic stool in a grove of woods a dozen miles outside the noisy bustle of the city. In his gamble to bring political change to his tightly controlled communist homeland, he knew it was the only place safe enough to talk freely.
To shake the ever-present government agents, the underground newspaper publisher had insisted that a Western reporter travel four hours on a circuitous route — beginning at 4 a.m., going by cab and motorcycle, reciting various code phrases (“Do you want coffee?” “No, I’d rather be fishing.”) along the way.
Speaking softly and keeping a vigilant eye, he said his covert army of resistors finally sees hope amid the gloom: Several political parties have recently formed in Vietnam without seeking government approval — a sure sign, he says, that the Communists are slowly losing their iron grip on Vietnamese culture and thought.
“This is a breakthrough,” said Ha, who is so fearful of being identified by the government that he insisted on using a pseudonym. “One group declaration drew 118 signatures from inside Vietnam, brave people who gave their names and addresses. Before this year, they would either be in jail or be dead.”
For years, Ha and other agitators have pushed for human rights and a two-party system in one of the world’s last remaining communist states. Working through grass-roots cells as their forefathers once did to defeat French and U.S. troops, they chronicle Communist 

Party wrongdoing — such as corruption, embezzlement and land grabs — and recruit new members.
Now Vietnamese democracy activists sense unprecedented opportunities to publicize their plight — and take their underground fight to the streets. This week, President Bush and other world leaders will visit Vietnam for this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi. The high-profile gathering comes as the U.S. Congress is contemplating lifting trade restrictions against the former enemy state, some dating to the Vietnam War era, and as the country is poised to join the World Trade Organization.
“In the last 10 months alone, the situation in Vietnam has changed more than in the entire past 10 years,” said Diem Do, the Orange County-based chairman of Viet Tan, or the Revolutionary Party to Reform Vietnam. “Overnight, new pro-democracy groups have sprung up to challenge the government’s monopoly on power.”
Dissidents know their window of opportunity may be short. Wary of negative publicity, government agents have backed off on their harassment of activists. And three Vietnam-born U.S. citizens who had been accused of plotting violence against the Hanoi government were given light sentences last week and ordered deported. But it’s anyone’s guess how quickly the strong-arm tactics will return, dissidents say.
As he nervously sipped coffee in a hotel lobby here in the city formerly known as Saigon, activist Do Nam Hai echoed the international call for action.
“Trade and economic acceptance must go hand in hand with human rights and democracy,” he said. “For the world to grant one without demanding the other would be a painful defeat for the people of Vietnam.”
Human rights groups have called for the U.S. to take a harder stand with Vietnam over its treatment of dissidents, and some members of Congress have tried to block bilateral trade over the issue. Rights groups say that hundreds of political prisoners are being held in Vietnam, which denies that dissidents are detained, saying that only those who break the law are prosecuted.
Bowing to international pressure, Vietnam announced last month it was abolishing a decade-old law that allowed the government to detain people for two years without trial, in the name of protecting national security.
Many say it’s still not enough.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) sent a letter to Bush last month asking him to publicize the human rights effort inside Vietnam during his upcoming APEC trip. She insisted that despite mounting pressure, Hanoi has “consistently refused to substantively improve the human rights situation in Vietnam.” 

In 2004, the State Department for the first time designated Vietnam a “country of particular concern,” citing religious and human rights violations.
“In Vietnam today, it’s not permissible to talk about basic things like human rights and democracy,” said Sara Colm, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Those are words that have landed people in prison.”
Officials have raided Internet cafes that antagonists have used to post underground essays. In September, the government released an activist who had spent more than four years in prison. His crime: translating articles from the State Department website for an online journal. The articles were titled “What is democracy?”
But dissidents claim new victories in their democracy battle.
Each day, more Vietnamese risk arrest by frequenting Internet cafes to express ideas, Ha said during the meeting in the woods. “People don’t believe in the Marxist doctrine anymore,” he said. “The influence of the Communist Party is slipping.”
Still, he knows the prodemocracy movement has its work cut out for it. The government controls 600 newspapers and 100 radio and TV stations throughout Vietnam. The activists run only two. But more are being launched. And employees are trying to unionize so officials can no longer harass editors.
“There are 3 million Internet users in Vietnam,” Ha said. “But only 10% have computers at home. The government has declared war on the Internet cafes, so we have to keep working to get our word out.”
The battle is far from won.
In February, Hai and another dissident were at an Internet cafe in Hanoi when 10 agents stormed the business. They interrogated the 47-year-old for five hours, accusing him of “violating state security and sending documents harmful to the Republic of Vietnam.”
Since then, his phone line has been cut three times and he has been brought into police headquarters for interrogation on scores of occasions, he said. Because of police pressure, he said, he was fired from his job as an engineer in a bank. After agents learned he had landed another job at an insurance company, he lost that position too.
“When I go to Internet cafes, they are always there,” he said. “They stand right behind my back, peering over my shoulder.”
Police have also pressured his parents, aging Communist Party members, telling them their son is a terrorist who is working to bring down the government. 

In October, after Hai co-wrote a manifesto for expanded democracy in Vietnam, the harassment increased, he said. Every day for weeks, he was required to report to police headquarters for daily interrogations.
“It was the same questions, again and again,” he said. “Who are my contacts? What are their names? Where can they be found?”
Recently, Hai drew the line: One day, he refused to show up. Since then, he has dodged agents: “Nothing has happened to me yet. But I know they are out there.”
Dissident Nguyen Chinh Ket knows he is another marked man.
Ket was breathing hard as he hurried into the downtown hotel lounge here. He slumped into a chair, wiped his brow and quickly turned to peer over his shoulder.
“I know they are behind me,” he said. “The bullies are always following.”
After signing an open letter announcing a new alliance of pro-democracy resistors from banned political parties, the former sociology professor and book translator was recently arrested with two others in a coffee shop here and forced to endure daily interrogation sessions.
The government’s response to his politics had already cost him his careers as teacher and translator. Now officials rifled the 54-year-old’s home, confiscating two computers and copying his files. Since then, they have confronted him about his so-called subversive ideas, morning to night.
His livelihood gone, he says, there is nothing left but the political fight.
“I’m a very normal person and I’m afraid of the police,” he said. “But what they don’t know is that their persecution keeps me going. The ultimate goal to the journey is freedom and democracy, not just for me but for 84 million people in Vietnam. That thought keeps me in peace.
“I am willing to sacrifice my life for that very beautiful ending.” 

Vietnam: Fledgling Democracy Movement Under Threat
Hundreds Join Groundbreaking Campaign Calling for Basic Rights
(New York, May 11, 2006) – The Vietnamese government must end its harassment of members of a fledgling human rights and democracy movement, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since early April, shortly before the Vietnamese Communist Party held its tenth National Congress, hundreds of people in Vietnam have signed on to public appeals calling for respect of basic human rights, a multiparty political system, and freedom of religion and political association. A wide array of Catholic priests, Buddhist monks, former political prisoners, former Communist Party officials, veterans, academics, teachers, nurses, engineers, writers, businesspeople and many ordinary citizens have signed the two appeals: the “Appeal for Freedom of Political Association” of April 6; and the “2006 Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam” of April 8 (also known as the “2006 Democracy Manifesto”). “It’s extraordinary that hundreds of citizens across Vietnam have boldly shown their support for political change in a written petition,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. “In Vietnam, the mere act of signing such documents routinely triggers a police investigation, detention and often imprisonment.” While much smaller groupings of prominent Vietnamese dissidents have signed appeals for human rights and democracy in the past decade, this is the first time in recent years that so many people have signed on to public petitions. The Vietnamese authorities have already begun to respond, but with harassment rather than dialogue. After the release of the first appeal on April 6, police briefly detained and interrogated several of the more prominent activists who signed it. These activists include writer Do Nam Hai (who also goes under the pen name Phuong Nam), Mennonite clergyman the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, and lawyer Nguyen Van Dai. Police used tape to seal Do Nam Hai’s computer and instructed the local Internet service provider to cut off his Internet access. At the same time, activists have launched an unsanctioned newspaper, Tu Do Ngon Luan (“Free Expression”), which has published two editions since April. In addition, a number of reporters and bloggers have formed an underground media group called the Free Journalists Association of Vietnam. 

Among the initiators of the April appeals are prominent dissidents and former political prisoners from Hanoi, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City, including academic Hoang Minh Chinh, teacher Nguyen Khac Toan, Hoa Hao Buddhist leader Le Quang Liem, professor Nguyen Chinh Ket and Catholic priests the Rev. Chan Tin and the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly. The group’s first public statement, an “Appeal for Freedom of Political Association,” was released on April 6 and signed by 116 individuals. On April 8, the “2006 Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam” was released and signed by 118 people. The five-page manifesto calls for: a pluralistic and multiparty political system; freedom of information and of opinion; freedom of religion; freedom to participate in independent labor unions; and freedom to assemble, form associations and political parties and stand for elected offices. As of May 8 – the one-month anniversary of the manifesto – 424 citizens had signed on. On April 30, the activists, calling themselves the “04/08/06 Group” – the date of the manifesto – issued a protest letter signed by 178 people to denounce the harassment of Do Nam Hai, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and Nguyen Van Dai. In that letter, two prominent Catholic priests, the Rev. Phan Van Loi and former political prisoner the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly, threatened to go on indefinite hunger strike if the arrests and harassment continued. The two appeals were issued as Vietnam conducted its tenth Communist Party National Congress from April 18-24, at which time a significant turnover in the Politburo was announced, with several key aging party veterans being replaced by younger members. “This is a test for the new Politburo,” said Adams. “Will a younger generation allow greater latitude for dissent and pluralism, or will they continue to crack down on basic civil and political rights?” With its bid to join the World Trade Organization still pending, Vietnam is seeking greater legitimacy and integration into the global economy. The Vietnamese government’s adherence to international human rights standards will be a factor in the U.S. State Department’s decision, expected in September, whether to remove its designation of Vietnam as a “Country of Particular Concern” for violations of religious freedom. “Vietnam cannot expect to gain international legitimacy if it continues to clamp down on calls for human rights, political pluralism and religious freedom,” said Adams.

Background
Despite Vietnam’s ratification of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the one-party state, dominated by the Vietnamese Communist Party, is intolerant of criticism. Media, political parties, religious organizations and labor unions are not allowed to exist without official sanction and oversight or to take actions that the government or the Communist Party consider contrary to their policies. Activists who have used the Internet to call for democracy or criticize the government have been imprisoned on the basis of loosely defined national security provisions in Vietnam’s penal code, which violate international standards. Internet dissidents have been imprisoned on charges of espionage or other national security crimes after using the Internet to disseminate opinions critical of the government. The journalist Nguyen Vu Binh is currently serving a five-year sentence, and Dr. Pham Hong Son is serving a seven-year sentence. In mid-April, two well known journalists, Duong Phu Cuong and Nguyen Huy Cuong, were detained and harassed at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City and prevented from attending a conference in Manila on free expression in Asian cyberspace. In late February, Do Nam Hai and Nguyen Khac Toan, a democracy activist and “cyber-dissident” who had just been released from prison, were arrested at an Internet café in Hanoi and briefly detained. Police inspected Toan’s e-mails, printing out a number of them. The two men were then taken to the police station and questioned for several hours. Toan was reportedly charged with violating conditions of his house arrest (after his release from prison he was required to serve five years of house arrest). Do Nam Hai was reportedly charged with violating Decree 55, which prohibits people from accessing banned Internet websites.