July 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — US lawmakers have asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to raise human rights when she visits Vietnam next week, saying that the issue should be at the heart of the nations’ growing relationship.
In a letter to Clinton sent Thursday, 19 members of the House of Representatives wrote that Vietnam “holds in its cells hundreds of prisoners whose only crime is to peacefully advocate for social justice.”
Clinton’s visit “represents a crucial opportunity not only to raise pressing concerns for imprisoned activists but to integrate human rights issues into the core of US-Vietnam bilateral policy,” they wrote.
The letter was signed by Representatives Howard Berman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Democrat and Republican respectively on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao, the only Vietnamese-American in Congress.
The letter asked Clinton to raise, in particular, the case of acclaimed writer and dissident Tran Khai Thanh Thuy. She was sentenced in February to three and a half years in prison on a charge of assault, which she denies.
Clinton is visiting Hanoi next week for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which also comes as the United States and Vietnam mark 15 years since the restoration of relations.
Despite the war legacy, the United States and Vietnam have enjoyed growing cooperation in recent years including in the defense arena.
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