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THE PRESIDENT’S VISIT TO VIETNAM: A MISSED

OPPORTUNITY TO ADVANCE HUMAN RIGHTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 22, 2016

Serial No. 114–213

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Pastor Rmah Loan (former head, Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam—

Dak Nong Province) ............................................................................................. 6

Ms. Katie Duong, overseas representative, Popular Bloc of Cao Dai Religion ... 11

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, Boat People 

SOS ........................................................................................................................ 17

Mr. T. Kumar, director of international advocacy, Amnesty International ........ 24

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Pastor Rmah Loan: Prepared statement ............................................................... 8

Ms. Katie Duong: Prepared statement .................................................................. 13

Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................. 20

Mr. T. Kumar: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 26

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 48

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 49

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: Statement 

of Ms. Jackie Bong Wright .................................................................................. 50

(1)

THE PRESIDENT’S VISIT TO VIETNAM: A 

MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO ADVANCE 

HUMAN RIGHTS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in room 

2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. Subcommittee will come to order and good afternoon 

to everyone. 

Over the past 20 years, much has changed in Vietnam. Some Vietnamese are a little richer, but universally recognized human 

rights remain elusive for most. 

The Vietnamese Communist Party has opened up a bit to the 

outside world but remains closed to the idea of democracy and the 

rule of law. U.S.-Vietnamese relations have warmed because of 

Vietnam’s fears of China’s increasing economic power and its incursions into the South China Sea. 

But human rights improvements have not come from so-called 

better relations. The administration has included Vietnam, a dictatorship, among several democracies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, granted potentially lucrative trade benefits to Communist 

leaders. 

Shockingly, during his recent trip, President Obama gave up the 

U.S. arms embargo. In other words, the U.S. is poised to provide 

lethal weapons to a brutal dictatorship that jails and tortures dissidents. 

Where are the background checks, Mr. President, of those soldiers and secret police who will have access to sophisticated weapons? 

Who will monitor the use or abuse of these lethal weapons? What 

is triggered if U.S.-supplied weapons are used to commit atrocities? 

The reality is that the administration chose to reward one of 

Asia’s most repressive regimes with the region’s most worst human 

rights record without getting any tangible progress on freedoms 

and liberties. 

We did hear the administration touting the bilateral labor consistency plan. It’s signed as part of the TPP. But as the submitted 

2

testimony by Jackie Bong Wright states, as of today independent 

labor unions remain prohibited. Labor activists are in jail and labor 

organizers are severely beaten. 

That the Vietnamese also detained and prevented civil society activists from meeting President Obama during his visit was not just 

an insult to the President, it is a bare-fisted demonstration of Vietnam’s repressive government. 

His visit was an epic failure of diplomacy. The President has said 

repeatedly that he wants to rise above history and heal wounds 

with America’s old adversaries. 

But that is not done by signing bad deals with dictators, giving 

them lethal weapons, and getting nothing in return. 

This is shortsighted, misguided, and driven by an ideological 

agenda more than a clear assessment of long-term U.S. interests. 

The end result of the President’s visit is that the American people 

now get to subsidize the lifestyles of Communist Party leaders and 

underwrite their repression of religious communities and rights advocates. 

Vietnamese-Americans have asked this Congress and the last 

three administrations to prioritize human rights concerns with 

Hanoi. 

But a small group of Vietnam ‘‘experts’’ in Washington veto these 

plans, holding on to the mistaken belief that trade, investment, and 

engagement will bring about political reform. 

Trade, investment, and engagement failed to change Vietnam in 

2001, the bilateral trade agreement failed to bring reforms in 2007 

when Vietnam joined the WTO, and it will fail now. 

Just look at China for what will happen when authoritarian governments get rich. They get the resources they need to expand censorship and repression, to grow their secret police and military capabilities and, above all, to stay in power. 

The President said famously in his inaugural address that if authoritarian countries would unclench their fists the U.S. would extend an open hand. 

But I see no tangible evidence that Vietnam, Cuba, or Iran, for 

that matter, have unclenched their fists. In fact, just the opposite 

is true. 

The President seems more interested in photo opportunities with 

dictators than standing up for persecuted individuals who share 

our desire for freedom, democracy, and human rights. 

This is not smart diplomacy. It is a surrender of U.S. interests 

and values. Sadly, the President’s legacy will be the propping up 

of a Communist old guard when he should be standing with the 

new generation of freedom advocates in Vietnam. 

We should stand with the oppressed, not with the oppressor. We 

must stand in solidarity with them. Over 100 prisoners of conscience remain detained in Vietnam, including human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai. 

I met with Nguyen Van Dai in Hanoi in 2005 and his courageous 

wife, Vu Minh Khanh, testified at a subcommittee hearing several 

weeks ago in anticipation of the President’s trip. 

Why did the administration not demand the release of Vu’s husband and all of these other prisoners and do so in public? To be 

strong and bold yet diplomatic? 

3

Father Ly was released into house arrest a few months prior to 

his sentence ending, and this is not a human rights breakthrough. 

Father Ly went into prison healthy and vigorous but emerged sickly and broken. 

I met him years ago when he was under house arrest another 

time after being released from a long incarceration. He is an amazing Catholic priest like so many of the leaders of the religious communities including the Venerable Thich Quang Do with whom I 

also met with and he continues to be under pagoda arrest. 

I have met with a broad spectrum of Vietnam’s rights advocates, 

religious leaders, and activists and I know there is a younger generation of Vietnam—66 percent of Vietnam is under the age of 40—

that looks to U.S. leadership. 

They want the United States to push for political reforms and 

universally-recognized human rights. They hunger for the type of 

liberty and a life they see enjoyed by their relatives in New Jersey, 

California, Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, and in many other parts of 

this country and around the world—places where the Vietnamese 

diaspora have migrated and have flourished and have been great 

citizens. 

It is for this reason that I am asking and making another push 

to pass legislation that I have authored known as the Vietnam 

Human Rights Act. This bill has passed four times only to be 

blocked in the Senate—first time back in the year 2004. 

The bipartisan Vietnam Human Rights Act will restore the right 

priorities to U.S. policy toward Vietnam and will limit U.S. non-humanitarian assistance that goes to Vietnam until there are concrete human rights protections. 

The bill also says that Vietnam should be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for its religious freedom violations. 

Just last week, I chaired a hearing, and Dan will remember it well. 

We had the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious 

Freedom and the former Chairman of the U.S. Commission on 

International Religious Freedom and the Commission has made a 

very strong and consistent appeal to the IRF office to put Vietnam 

in that CPC category. 

It had been taken off prematurely during an economic agreement 

in the false hope that there would be deliverables that never happened. 

People who came forward including those who signed Bloc 8406, 

a wonderful human rights manifesto, found themselves targeted 

because they signed on and did so openly in the belief that somehow after the agreement with the United States there would be a 

new era. That era has not happened. 

We all know that CPC designation worked when it was used by 

the Bush administration but, again, I believe that the Bush administration lifted it prematurely in anticipation of, but without, concrete changes made. 

The Communist Party is not Vietnam’s future. That future lies 

with the Nguyen Van Dais and many other advocates of political 

reform and human rights who seek our freedoms more than our 

trade. 

U.S. policy must send the unmistakable message to the Government of Vietnam that human rights improvements are important 

4

to better relations critically linked to our mutual economic and security interests and will not be ignored nor will they be bargained 

away. 

The President failed to send this message. It is up to the Congress and the next administration, although there are some months 

remaining in this one, to restore the right priorities to the U.S.-

Vietnam relations. 

I would like to now yield to my friend, Mr. Donovan, for any comments. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to yield my time to give the witnesses more time to 

testify. I look forward to their testimony and to their insight into 

the relations between our country and theirs. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I would like to now welcome our distinguished witnesses to the 

witness table, beginning first with Pastor Rmah Loan, who is a 

Montagnard pastor with Christian Missionary Alliance and later 

became chaplain of a Montagnard church that is affiliated with the 

Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam. His church has 36,000 

followers and the authorities often showcase it to foreign missions 

that visit central highlands. Pastor Loan was the head of his 

church only in title. 

The government put in place an administrative committee to 

oversee all operations of the church. It made all decisions and Pastor Loan had no say whatsoever. Every statement of Pastor Loan 

must be vetted by this committee and preapproved by the proper 

security apparatus. 

In June 2014, Pastor Loan and his wife came to the United 

States at the invitation of a local church but they have not returned under the threat of arrest. 

We will then hear from Ms. Katie Duong, who is the overseas 

representative of the Popular Bloc of Cao Dai Religion, also a member of the Advisory Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam. 

Until recently, her father, Mr. Duong Xuan Luong, a senior 

member of the Popular Bloc of Cao Dai, continued to lead it in 

Vietnam, facing increasing threats by local authorities who fled to 

Thailand early this year but has continued to lead and advocate for 

the Popular Bloc of Cao Dai Religion and has filed multiple reports 

on violations of freedom of religion to the U.N. Special Rapporteur 

on freedom of religion or belief. 

We will then hear from Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, who I have 

known for 25 years or more. Dr. Thang came to the United States 

as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979. 

After earning his Ph.D. he began volunteering at Boat People 

SOS in 1988. Now serving as head of Boat People SOS, Dr. Thang 

has worked for the past 25 years to resettle 20,000 boat people to 

the U.S. after they were rescued from Vietnam and also has 

worked to rescue more than 4,000 victims of trafficking. 

He has received numerous awards for his extensive work on 

human rights. He travels extensively to Asia and I would note parenthetically on the boat people it was Dr. Thang who alerted this 

subcommittee. 

It resulted in four hearings including a closed briefing with the 

administration in the hopes that they would reform their efforts to 

5

send so many back who had been found to be real refugees. And 

as a direct result of his leadership, those 20,000 people came in 

under the ROVR program and had it not been for him that would 

not have happened. 

So thank you. Those families are deeply appreciative as am I and 

this subcommittee for your leadership. 

Then we welcome back again Mr. T. Kumar, who is Amnesty 

International’s director for international advocacy. He has testified 

many times before the U.S. Congress on human rights abuses. 

He has served as a human rights monitor in many Asian countries as well as Bosnia, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Sudan, and South 

Africa. He has also served as director of several refugee ships and 

camps. T. Kumar was a political prisoner himself for 5 years in Sri 

Lanka for his peaceful human rights activities. 

Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience 

and now he, on the leadership side, tried to help many others and 

to rescue many others from that cruel fate. 

I would like to yield to Chairman Rohrabacher if he has any 

opening comments. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am upset at this administration but I have 

to be fair to this administration when I say that. I have been upset 

with other administrations as well, Republican and Democratic, 

when it comes to issues like being serious about human rights. 

American leaders can sit right next to tyrants and gangsters and 

not even bring up the fact that they have a one-child policy, for example, in China where millions of babies were being murdered. 

And in the case of Vietnam, you know, and we have a President 

who can go to Vietnam but can’t go see General Sisi in Egypt. That 

tells us something. 

The Government of Vietnam is in no way consistent with what 

the American people believe is honest government and consistent 

with any of the principles of democracy that we believe in. 

And this administration has just basically closed their eyes to 

those particular fundamentals that are supposed to be the basis of 

our own Government. Well, if we don’t believe in it enough to bring 

this up and make that a major issue of contention between our governments, what does that say about our own beliefs in our own system here? 

So, Mr. Chairman, again, I always admire your willingness to 

spend your time and your effort to focus on the fundamental issue 

that really counts and that is whether we respect the human rights 

of the people of whatever country it is and whether we expect those 

governments to maintain a certain standard. 

Vietnam is nowhere near that standard and the United States 

needs to say so aggressively and if indeed they want to make 

things better we should work with them and try to make it better. 

But at this point, they certainly haven’t come close, and thank 

you for holding this hearing today. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher. 

Pastor Loan. 

6

STATEMENT OF PASTOR RMAH LOAN (FORMER HEAD, SOUTHERN EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF VIETNAM—DAK NONG 

PROVINCE) 

[The following statement was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Pastor LOAN. The Honorable Christopher Smith, distinguished 

Members of Congress, my name is Rmah Loan. I was born on February 12th, 1950. I have been a pastor for 44 years under the 

Southern Evangelist Church of Vietnam. 

From 1967 to 1969, I assisted American special forces during the 

Vietnam War. Afterward, I went to biblical school in Ban Me Thuot 

to study theology. 

I worked as a pastor in residence for 2 years until I was detained 

by the Communist force in 1975. I was imprisoned for 8 years. 

I was in jail for 8 years because of my Christian belief and support for the United States Armed Forces. After my release from 

prison, I remained under house arrest until 1986. 

In 1986, I was appointed by the Southern Evangelical Christians 

of Southern Vietnam to be in charge of the Evangelical Church in 

Budak village where I remained until 2014. 

In 2014, I came to the United States for church-related business 

but then found out I could return to Vietnam in safety. Now I am 

asking this great nation to grant me asylum because if I return to 

Vietnam I will be imprisoned again, tortured, and even killed. 

Today, I would like to tell you about my church in Budak, Thuan 

An, Dak Mil, Dak Nong Province. This church serves approximately 100,000 followers throughout Dak Nong Province that includes ethnic Bunong, Hmong, Giao, San Chi, Nung, Tay, and 

Kinh. 

In 2007, Hanoi allowed the congregation to build the church in 

Budak. Even though we have a church, we do not have the freedom 

to practice our religion. The Vietnamese Government controls the 

executive committee that leads the church. 

Any time we want to hold elections for the executive committee, 

we have to inform the subdistrict, district, and the Dak Nong Province police to request their permission. 

The church must provide full names of our candidates for background checks. To be eligible, a candidate must not have been in 

service of the South Vietnam Government or a member of the 

FULRO, United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, or 

any deemed to be opposed to the Hanoi Government. 

On election day, the government authorities preside over the 

election process. The government authorities also attend and observe all ordination ceremonies. 

When the church wants to celebrate holidays such as Christmas, 

Easter or for a wedding or a funeral service, the pastor must get 

prior permission from the authorities—the specific date, time, duration of the service, as well as the number of participants. 

The pastor must provide the text of his sermon to the government 7 days before the service for prior approval. The government 

even controls the words that we can use in our sermon. 

It is forbidden to use such words as devil because in Vietnamese 

‘‘ma quy’’ can be flipped around to spell ‘‘My qua’’ meaning that 

Americans are coming back. For such absurd reasons, we may not 

mention devil in our sermon. 

7

Similarly, we may not say that Christ is coming again because 

the authorities interpret that as meaning Americans will return to 

Vietnam. 

The Vietnamese Government accused Protestantism to be an 

American religion, neither may we use the word freedom because 

the government believes that freedom refers to America, as in the 

Land of the Free. 

The authorities also send their operatives to come and monitor 

our services. At the start of the service, the program leader must 

recognize and give thanks to the Communist Party and government 

officials first and then we can give thanks to the Lord, the guests 

and the church, in that order. 

In 2014, my wife and I came to the United States at the invitation of a local church. As soon as we were in the country, we received notice from a fellow pastor in Vietnam advising me not to 

return because the authorities were investigating my children 

about our whereabouts. 

The authorities suspect that I had disclosed to the world the 

death by torture of a Hmong member of my church. In 2013, Hoang 

Van Ngai, a faithful and dedicated deacon at our church, was detained and beaten to death. 

The authorities ordered me to never mention this incident and 

threatened my life if I dare to defy their order. In 2014, news about 

Deacon Ngai’s death by torture became known to the world. 

The authorities suspect that I was the source of information. I 

was not. Regardless, if I return to Vietnam now, I will be detained, 

tortured and likely killed the same way they killed Deacon Hoang 

Van Ngai. 

It has not been easy on me and my wife because our children are 

left in Vietnam. I am applying for asylum in the United States but 

it can take years for my fate to be decided. 

America is the land that was founded in religious freedom. Just 

like the immigrants and refugees from hundreds of years ago, I 

have reached the shore of America, seeking safety and freedom. 

I ask that you, as the leaders of the United States, to never forget that millions of people around the world are suffering every day 

all because of the god they believe in. I ask that you continue to 

protect them and also that you protect my wife and me so we do 

not have to face persecution in the hands of Vietnamese authorities. 

We believe President Obama and leaders of the free world must 

have a road map for peace, freedom and democracy for Vietnam. 

We must stand with one voice, one heart, and one task, working 

together to defend the rights of religious freedom for Montagnard 

Evangelical Christians and all Vietnamese citizens in Vietnam. 

Thank you for the privilege to speak freely for the first time in 

41 years. Thank you for remembering the Montagnard people and 

taking a stand for our survival. May God bless you and the United 

States of America. 

May God bless you and the United States of America. 

Thank you for the time to speak and my chance to be here in 

America. I want to stay here so I can save my life. 

[The prepared statement of Pastor Loan follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Pastor Loan, thank you for your very courageous and 

compelling testimony. It really is extremely helpful that the American public, this subcommittee, the Congress, hear what you just 

said as well as our other witnesses. So on behalf of all of us, thank 

you so very much. 

I would like to now recognize Ms. Duong. Please present your 

testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MS. KATIE DUONG, OVERSEAS 

REPRESENTATIVE, POPULAR BLOC OF CAO DAI RELIGION 

Ms. DUONG. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of Congress. My name is Katie 

Duong Skiba and it is my honor to be here today to present about 

my religion, Cao Dai, which is a very small religion founded in 

Vietnam in 1926. 

Now, we Cao Dai people call for unity, love, peace and respect 

for all other faiths and we have our own faith, rituals, and traditions. However, the Communists—the Vietnamese Communist Government has been trying to change everything. 

And my presentation today will have three parts—government 

takeover, ongoing persecutions, and request for support. 

So the government took over our main temple after 1975 and disbanded all the leadership’s organization and they basically told us 

to go home. And after that they confiscated our main temple and 

all other temples, and after a while they appointed their people—

the Communist people—to control the temple and the whole Cao 

Dai Religion. 

They changed our rituals and they forced all of us to obey their 

disciplines, which we do not agree, and because of that we have 

been facing a lot of ongoing persecutions. And then I would like to 

show you a few pictures of the recent. 

So since 1975, we have been facing, you know, government takeover and we have been trying so hard to get together and tell the 

government that we need religious freedom—give us the right—

give us back the temple. 

This happened in May last year when almost 1,000 people went 

back to the temple asking them to let us hold a meeting to elect 

our own leaders instead of them forcing the Communist leader on 

us. 

And they basically banned us from approaching the temple, and 

I can show you a lot of people who could not get into the premises. 

And it’s kind of dark but you can see the man was arrested and 

these women have paint on their ao dai, which is the traditional 

dress that the Cao Dai people wear. 

So these are things that happened and at a funeral if we don’t 

let the Communist Cao Dai come to host the ceremony they will 

attack us. And you see that this is the funeral—the ceremony that 

we had and, you know, got destroyed, basically. 

And this is the Divine Eye installation which is a very important 

ceremony that people have—religion have to install that at their 

house. You see the first picture there’s a picture of the Divine Eye. 

But the second picture of the Divine Eye portrait was taken 

away by those people. That is a very insulting action and they basiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:15 Sep 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\062216\20530 SHIRL
12

cally came in and we closed the door and they tried to get in. They 

attacked us and this has been, like, ongoing. 

It is not one incident. It has been going on and on and on. We 

got hurt. People got imprisoned and vandalism and people got arrested in the van or truck. 

Do you see that? In the last picture on the bottom right corner, 

people was arrested to the government offices just because we are 

practicing our religion. 

And these documents show that these people could not get out 

of the country because they are trying to go to Thailand to attend 

their Asian Religious Freedom Forum. 

So we have all different kinds of persecutions and ongoing violations for religious freedom. A personal example would be my family 

and my father. 

He was arrested and put into jail when I was 15 and my younger 

sister was only 10. My mother had to take care of the whole family 

of four children by herself and with a lot of difficulty financially 

caused by the government. 

And then after getting out of prison, my father continued to fight 

for religious freedoms and then—and they continued to harass him. 

In 2008, they tried to arrest him again to put him in jail. 

But, luckily, he was not at home and they have been trying to 

arrest him since then, and recently they have been given threats 

again. So my father has to, you know, get out of the country. As 

a U.S. citizen I have sponsored my father and my mother to come 

with me to the United States. 

My mom could come with me but my father, unfortunately, the 

Vietnamese Government refused to give him a passport or any documentation to go through the visa process. 

My last section will be our request for support. If possible, we 

would love to remain independent from the government control. 

We don’t want any interference from the government and we 

want to reserve our culture the unique way that we practice our 

religions. In order to do so we have to have freedom of, you know, 

movement, freedom of assembly, association, freedom of speech, 

and information. 

We want the Vietnamese Government to respect human rights, 

especially religious freedom rights that they have signed for the 

universal agreement with the United Nations. 

And with the growing bilateral development connection between 

the U.S. Government and the Vietnamese Government, the U.S. 

Government has solid ground to remind the Vietnamese Government to respect that and that is a value that the U.S. has been living on. So we look forward to that and I appreciate your time. 

I appreciate your concern and we, the Cao Dai people, really 

need and appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Duong follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Duong, thank you very much for your testimony, 

for detailing in your written submission seven specific instances 

which give greater detail as to the pervasiveness of these actions—

and these were instances in 2015—which, of course, continue to 

today. 

And without objection, your full statement and that of all of our 

distinguished witnesses will be made a part of the record. But 

thank you for your witness. 

Ms. DUONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Thang. 

STATEMENT OF NGUYEN DINH THANG, PH.D., PRESIDENT AND 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BOAT PEOPLE SOS 

Mr. THANG. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the 

committee, thank you for holding this hearing at this very critical 

time about missed opportunities to advance freedoms for 93 million 

Vietnamese people. 

As the previous speakers have said very well, the situation of religions in Vietnam remains very dire and deplorable. President 

Obama could have used his recent state visit to Vietnam to at least 

try to curb the backsliding in human rights in that country. 

He could have insisted that Vietnam release a significant number of prisoners of conscience before announcing the lifting of the 

arms embargo. That didn’t happen. 

He could have challenged the leadership of Vietnam to answer 

the people’s demand for transparency in the case of 80 tons of dead 

fish as a gesture showing commitment to the environmental protection which, by the way, is a requirement under the Trans-Pacific 

Partnership, or TPP, and he didn’t speak out on that issue either. 

President Obama could have demanded unhindered access to individuals he wanted to meet comparable to the level of access accorded to the Vietnamese President when he visited here in the 

States. Or President Obama could have called on authorities to 

honor the Convention Against Torture, which the National Assembly of Vietnam just ratified by, investigating and prosecuting 

known violators, and there are many of them. 

President Obama didn’t do any of the above, disappointingly. Of 

the hundreds of prisoners of conscience, only Father Nguyen Van 

Ly was released and only by 10 weeks in advance of the end of his 

term of imprisonment. 

Hundreds of peaceful pro-environment protestors were arrested, 

detained and some were even beaten the weekend before and after 

the President’s state visit to Vietnam. Civil society members invited to meet with the President were confined to their homes or 

even kidnapped. 

On top of that, two American citizens were abducted and detained, and by the way, one of them is here in this room—Miss 

Dolly Khuu. She was one of the American citizens kidnapped and 

detained in Vietnam. 

The President brought home to America a $11.3 billion deal for 

Boeing, which is great. However, nothing for human rights, and the 

backsliding has accelerated of late. 

18

In just 1 week, 3 months ago—in just 1 week, four bloggers and 

three land rights activists were sentenced to a total of 33 years of 

imprisonment. 

Many former prisoners of conscience who were only recently released from prison or house detention have been rearrested such 

as—and you know him very well, Mr. Chairman—lawyer Nguyen 

Van Dai, land rights activist Can Thi Theu and pro-democracy advocate Tran Anh Kim. 

Many independent religious communities are facing increasingly 

brutal repression. Last August, a Hmong Christian was arrested 

the day after his meeting with members of the U.S. Commission on 

International Freedom (USCIRF). 

He was brutally tortured for 2 days and had to be hospitalized 

because he had met with the U.S. delegation and in January of this 

year a Montagnard pastor died from injuries caused by torture by 

the police. 

A fellow Montagnard pastor reported this death at a meeting 

with Ambassador David Saperstein last month. He himself was arrested and interrogated for 2 days. 

His interrogators threatened him with disappearance and harm 

to his wife and children if he did not stop reporting violations and 

did not renounce his faith. 

Mrs. Tran Thi Hong, the wife of imprisoned Lutheran Pastor 

Nguyen Cong Chinh and a human rights defender herself, was also 

arrested after her meeting with Ambassador Saperstein. 

She was subjected to repeated beatings and torture. Her daily 

‘‘working’’ session with the police was suspended just before the arrival of President Obama to Vietnam but resumed immediately 

after his departure. 

I am glad to say that now it has stopped, thanks to the very 

strong intervention from Ambassador Saperstein himself. And let 

me show the picture of Mrs. Hong here. 

This is Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh. He himself was brutalized 

several years ago before his imprisonment and this is Mrs. Hong, 

after the torture session—she was dumped in front of her house. 

She couldn’t walk at all. She couldn’t stand up. The neighbors 

passing by found her on the street and dragged her home. And this 

is her, Mrs. Hong, and the injuries to her knees and legs and feet 

and hands. 

And this is another incident of torture and you can see bruises 

and red marks on her face, and this is how the Vietnamese Government treated people who have met with U.S. delegations. 

And I believe it is an affront to our Government that President 

Obama didn’t raise that issue, didn’t condemn the Government of 

Vietnam to have done such things. 

And in the light of all these disturbing trends, somehow our administration still hangs its hope on Vietnam’s promise to pass its 

first law on religion. 

Its latest draft would only cement the status quo and even make 

it worse by creating more bureaucratic layers of registration requirements and by completely eliminating the one section that was 

good in previous drafts. 

That was the section on compliance with international standards. 

That section had been removed in the latest draft of that law. 

19

Unless fundamentally and drastically modified, having no law at 

all would be a lesser evil. 

In early 2007, the Vietnamese Government launched a brutal political clamp down against dissidents and religious leaders right 

after it had gotten all it wanted, namely accession to the WTO, the 

lifting of the CPC designation, permanent normal trade relation 

status with the U.S. and playing host to the APEC Summit. 

The situation now is strikingly and disturbingly similar to then. 

Vietnam just got the U.S. arms embargo lifted, the TPP signed, 

and it will host again the APEC Summit next year. 

It is therefore critical that Congress now acts so as to avert the 

repeat of the 2007 fiasco by demanding that Vietnam be redesignated a Country of Particular Concern and that violators of religious freedom be placed under a U.S. visa ban, by enacting legislation which—with stricter monitoring and reporting requirements 

and more effective sanctions against human rights abusers, by delaying the ratification of TPP to allow for sufficient time to test 

Vietnam’s willingness and resolve to honor labor rights, environmental protection and freedom of religion, to end torture and to 

combat modern-day slavery, by making any future sale of lethal 

weapons contingent on Vietnam’s release of all prisoners of conscience, by giving Vietnam’s civil society—and this is very important—recognition and legitimacy through direct dialogue with its 

representatives of civil society networks such as Bloc 8406, Vietnamese Independent Civil Society Organizations Network, or 

VICSON, and Vietnam Multi-faith Roundtable, which was just recently formed, and finally, by coordinating intervention efforts with 

parliamentarians of other countries. 

There are many of them in Europe as well as in ASEAN who 

would be very much interested in working and collaborating with 

U.S. Members of Congress. 

With that, I thank you again, Mr. Chairman and Members of 

Congress. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thang follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Thang, thank you so very much for your leadership and for your incisive comments today, which are very, very 

helpful. Thank you. 

Mr. Kumar. 

STATEMENT OF MR. T. KUMAR, DIRECTOR OF 

INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you very much, Chairman, Congressman 

Rohrabacher. I’m extremely pleased to be here to testify and I was 

thinking this may be the first time I’m testifying after a person had 

visited a country. Usually, we have hearings before to put pressure 

but you held one. 

But it’s one of the realities of the occasion that after the visit we 

are having a hearing. That says it all about President Obama’s 

human rights commitment and the way they negotiate human 

rights issues along with other issues. 

I also want to make sure that my written testimony is entered 

into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you. 

Amnesty International has been working on human rights in 

Vietnam and other countries but in Vietnam for more than three, 

four decades. Things have never improved. 

It’s improved sometimes when U.S. Presidents and others pushed 

and opened up a little bit. So the situation did not improve even 

when President Obama was about to visit. 

There were two things that happened before his visit. One is the 

annual human rights dialogue that took place between Vietnam 

and the U.S. No improvement at all. 

This became more of a annual exercise for the sake of having a 

dialogue. We thought something would happen because President 

Obama is about to visit. 

So then just before President Obama visited, for 2 weeks before, 

Assistant Secretary Malinowski and from the White House senior 

officials were there negotiating tried to get some results. Nothing 

except Father Ly, who was just released a couple of weeks before 

his due date. 

Then President Obama arrived. The administration, I will say, 

has misguided us before—they told us, we asked specifically, there 

are reports that the arms embargo will be lifted and they gave an 

indication that no, that’s not the case. 

Even though Amnesty International did not take a position, we 

want to know what’s going on because the reports are coming. 

Whether that was an intentional way of silencing us or whatever 

the reason, the very senior officials told us don’t worry, no, no, no, 

we will consult you and all the rest of it. 

And everyone knew that the trade agreement, TPP, was one of 

the main reasons—one of President Obama’s legacy. He wanted to 

keep that as a legacy. 

So these two issues were there. He went in, obviously being nice 

to Vietnam is to get them on board for TPP and also to everyone’s 

surprise he announced that the arms embargo would be lifted. 

Okay, you have done all these things. You have given more than 

25

enough Vietnamese may have expected. But what in return you got 

was a slap in your face. In a nutshell, that is what happened. 

While he was there, people were arrested for peacefully protesting. People were held incommunicado house arrest, tortured. 

And it is very rarely defined, when a U.S. President is visiting a 

country, a host country pretty much treats someone who this particular President, or any U.S. President, is caring and supports his 

people without abusing them. 

That raises a serious question about how Vietnamese authorities 

look at President Obama’s administration and also the U.S. for 

President Obama, as mentioned earlier, it is a slap in the face. He 

should have walked out. 

He should have said, I am leaving until you release these folks. 

He didn’t do it. He was there enjoying all the parties and whatever 

he wanted to do, getting all the goodies. 

So it is disappointing. The big challenge the U.S. Government in 

the future will face is President Obama has lowered the bar so low 

that it will be very difficult for the next President whoever it may 

be to raise it. 

So that is a big challenge that the next administration should 

focus and to be mindful. Otherwise, it is going to be repeated. It 

is not only Vietnam. Other countries will feel the same way. Okay, 

we can push them and they will bend over backwards if we give 

a trade agreement and whatever the regional stability issues. 

The issues in Vietnam nearly everyone else said so I don’t want 

to repeat. But it’s really disturbing. Numerous people have been arrested. Prisoners of conscience have been imprisoned, tortured, died 

in custody. 

The list goes on. No institution is free there. Everything is under 

the control of the government, even the judiciary. 

So, no independent judiciary. No independent media. No independent institutions. Nothing is there. It is the government that 

controls everything and decides everything and lock people up—

anyone who raises any voice. 

So as I mentioned earlier, President Obama’s trip has sent an extremely negative impression to people of Vietnam and to people 

around the world that you can—you don’t have to take the U.S. seriously when it comes to human rights. 

Thank you very much, Chairman, for inviting me and looking 

forward to the questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kumar follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Kumar, thank you again for your extraordinary 

candor. You, for years, no matter what the country that is being 

highlighted and focused upon, have always given such extremely 

valuable insights—unvarnished, no matter who is in the White 

House, Republican or Democrat, and I think that serves, obviously, 

the victims and the potential victims so extremely well. 

And to break this pattern of complicity, in my opinion, that this 

administration has engaged in with dictatorships, you are right, we 

need to be still hoping maybe against hope that this administration 

will find its voice on human rights and stop the rhetorical flourish 

and be substantive. 

I would just say that I have authored a number of laws on 

human rights, as you know. The international child abduction 

law—it is called the Goldman Act—the Sean and David Goldman 

International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act—that 

legislation has a report attached to it as well as other aspects to 

it. 

Last year they got it wrong, famously wrong, about Japan and 

other nations. It was due on April 30th. That report is late. It will 

probably come as soon as we go into recess when everybody in the 

House and Senate are out of town. How cynical is that? 

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act last year—I am the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the TIP Report 

that comes out annually was due at the beginning of the month if 

not earlier. That has not yet arrived. 

Last year, 14 countries were erroneously placed or given passing 

grades when the TIP office itself thought those 14 countries should 

have been what we call Tier 3—as you know, egregious violators 

and gave out inflated grades—in other words, bending the rules, 

breaking the rules I would suggest—for political reasons and not 

human rights criteria. 

The Reuters news organization did an incisive series of investigative reports that found that country after country, from Cuba to 

China to Oman—all these countries that should have gotten horrible grades got passing grades through this administration, contrary to what their own TIP office had said they should be given 

because it was done for political reasons. 

So I find it abhorrent in the extreme that the President would 

go to Vietnam. There is an old saying—thanks, but no thanks. If 

I were a dissident in Vietnam, I would say, no thanks, Mr. President—please don’t come, as well as the other phrase, more harm 

than good. 

You pointed out, Dr. Thang, that many people were arrested and 

harassed before, then during, and I am sure after as well. These 

people have suffered beatings and torture, directly attributable to 

the President’s visit. 

That is unconscionable. The President should be on that phone. 

He should have said to the leadership in Vietnam even while there, 

if you do any more of this then I am out of here—I will make an 

international incident—I stand with the oppressed, and I said earlier, not with the oppressor and you need to stop it. 

I know there are people from the Vietnamese Government in this 

room. I hope they convey that back to Hanoi. I find it appalling. 

39

If you were in trouble we would be fighting for you, and many 

people who are in government one day find themselves on the 

wrong side of the dictatorship and other, and who do they come to? 

They often come to the democracies including and especially the 

United States. 

A couple questions—I sensed a failure of the White House press 

corps and of the press corps generally to really rein in and focus 

on what was happening to the dissidents. There were a few stories—to me, it should have been the main story—that the President goes to Vietnam. 

Dissidents, journalists, bloggers, and people fighting for environmental protections were rounded up and tortured. That should 

have been the story, and yet it seems not to have been. 

Rabbi Saperstein testified last week before our subcommittee and 

I have a great deal of respect for him as the Ambassador-at-Large. 

But to think that he would meet with Mrs. Hong and she’d be beaten as well as others when he meets with them, that should have 

been the absolute red line that once crossed all bets were off. 

There should be a rescission of the lifting of the arms embargo. 

The President should do that today. There is nothing precluding 

him from today saying that arms embargo lifting, it is not going 

to happen—I am reversing myself because of the egregious human 

rights abuses being committed. 

So if you could maybe touch on the press corps side of it, what 

we ought to be doing further. We want to get the Frank R. Wolf 

International Religious Freedom Act out of the Senate. 

The Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which 

had 118 cosponsors including my good friend and colleague Chairman Rohrabacher, passed overwhelmingly. It is sitting in the Senate. My hope is they take it up soon. 

The Vietnam Human Rights Act—we are hoping our committee 

will take it up. I am talking about the full Committee on Foreign 

Affairs. Remember it passed four times.I21Even if it dies again in 

the Senate we will back again next year. We have to be as tenacious as the people who are suffering, giving of their blood and of 

their freedom. We could do no less. So we need to get that enacted 

as well as others. 

Ms. Duong, you talked about how they are using visas denying 

the ability to travel. Under the International Religious Freedom 

Act, and Vietnam should have been yesterday, but certainly today, 

designated as a CPC and when I did press Rabbi Saperstein on 

that, the Ambassador-at-Large, last week, there are provisions in 

there to deny visas to those who commit crimes against religious 

believers and they are done in a targeted and a calibrated way. 

Unfortunately, even under the Bush administration, there was 

one and that was against Modi, now the head of state for India. 

That tool needs to be used much more aggressively and it seems 

to me Vietnam should get that CPC designation and the visa ban 

needs to be imposed on people who hurt Cao Dai or Christians or 

anyone else. 

So on those few questions, then I yield to my friend, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Pastor Loan, you were ministering to the 

Montagnard people? When did you leave the central highlands? 

40

Pastor LOAN. May 2014. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. I spent some time there in 1967 in 

Pleiku or near Pleiku anyway—that little French fort. They have 

a little French fort over there. I was operating out of there. 

Pastor LOAN. I know. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. We won’t go into what’s gone on in 

that fort now. Kind of interesting what they did with it. 

But I know that the Montagnards were incredibly brave people, 

and did they suffer disproportionately after the Americans left? 

Those Montagnards who had allied with us, did they suffer more 

than other people in Vietnam? 

Pastor LOAN. After the Americans left Vietnam that is when they 

started torturing the Montagnard people such as the people who 

joined force with the American force, helping Americans during the 

Vietnam War. They went hard on them, made them suffer or their 

family, basically, yes, after the Vietnam War. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I have often wondered what had happened to 

some of the people I knew there and let me just note that the Vietnamese people sided with us during the Cold War and we walked 

away and they suffered because of it. However, we can make up 

for that, Mr. Chairman, by trying to be a strong voice now in trying 

to evolve communism out of that repressive system. 

(Applause.) 

Let me ask, does anyone here believe—well, first of all, in Vietnam now do they still use all these Communist slogans? Do they 

still use the Communist slogans to control the people? 

Does anyone here believe that they really believe in Marxism, 

Leninism? Do the people running the government actually believe 

in Marxist-Leninist principles, which is the basis of communism? 

My theory is they don’t believe in this at all. They are just a 

bunch of thugs and gangsters and they could not care less about 

trying to create this new man that doesn’t have any of this Communist propaganda that threatened the world for a long time, in 

fact. 

So they don’t believe in it. Here they claim, using Communist 

slogans, yet Mr. Chairman, they are partnering with American 

businessmen in order to exploit their own people. 

Now we have a partnership between the ultimate capitalist and 

these Vietnamese ‘‘leaders,’’ the gangsters who run the country and 

then they have the gall to say that they are Communist when they 

are exploiting their own people and they are partnering with our 

own companies. 

Now, I am ashamed of our own companies, the Americans who 

are willing to use a totalitarian control of a people under the name 

of communism in order for them to make a profit. We saw that in 

China as well. 

I was very interested in what you were saying about the sermons, that the Communists actually come in and tell you that you 

have to get approval of your sermon before you are able to give it. 

I think that is so alien to Americans they could not imagine that 

that is happening in any country. How can anybody even imagine 

that? 

Mr. Chairman, I remember Ronald Reagan stated very clearly, 

he said that one of the biggest problems is that for Americans, who 

41

take freedom for granted because freedom is invisible. Freedom is 

when you don’t have someone having to look at your sermon before 

you give the sermon. 

Freedom is when you don’t have to get permission to do something before you do it and in dictatorships like in Vietnam that repression is there and the people see it every day. 

But Americans don’t even know what to look for and that is why 

hearings like this are very important. And let me just note that it 

was very poignant, sir. You said that you are not allowed to use 

the word ‘‘freedom.’’

And let me note, this is—I am sorry for being political here but 

we have a President of the United States who is unable to use the 

words ‘‘radical Islamic terrorist’’ and these people know that words 

have meaning and that is why the regime now, the gangster regime in Vietnam know that words have meaning. 

They don’t want that powerful word there because freedom also 

implies responsibility and accountability because you have freedom 

of the press, which you don’t have under this Communist system. 

And so these things all tie together. 

Let us hope that we are a shining light to the world, especially 

a beacon of hope to people who sided with us when they thought 

they were going to help us, and thank you again. 

I do believe that now is the time for the American people not just 

come to partnership with this TPP they are talking about. 

How could we possibly go along with an agreement that allows 

these gangsters to possibly be on that commission to decide whether or not we are in compliance with the trade treaty? 

It is a total elimination of standards and values for consideration 

and we should be instead fighting to make sure there are higher 

standards than just having our businessmen go over there and 

make a profit from basically labor that is not permitted to organize 

and from Vietnamese people who are being suppressed and their 

standard of living is so much lower than elsewhere. 

So thank you all very much for testifying today. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for chairing this hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Chair Rohrabacher. 

I did ask a few earlier questions and if you could come back to 

those and maybe add answers to them and this one would be to 

Mr. Kumar. 

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the freedom of religion or belief, 

Bielefeldt, has said—regarding Vietnam—that the rights of freedom of religion and belief of such communities are grossly violated—we are talking about independent religious belief communities—in the face of constant surveillance, intimidation, harassment and persecution and, of course, Pastor Loan’s church at least 

has some recognition and yet he has had such terrible experiences. 

What possibly might the Special Rapporteur do? Secondly, in 

your testimony you talk about the U.N. Convention Against Torture, entered into force in February, and you also pointed out that 

the We Are One campaign launched and in March a letter went to 

the U.N. Human Rights Council, so another bite of the apple, if you 

will, of trying to get the U.N. further engaged on human rights 

there. 

42

There were many signers, 27 local civil society organizations and 

122 organizations. Is that bearing any fruit at the U.N. in terms 

of their reaction to these terrible abuses? 

Mr. KUMAR. At the U.N., depending on that day, the Human 

Rights Council member states that are there, it is having some impact, especially when the special rapporteurs give their reports. So 

it takes some time. 

But there is some movement in that direction and also to the 

same point, U.S. is not a member at this moment for the last 1 

year. It is running to be elected so in November we will know the 

results. But more than likely the U.S. will get elected. 

So once it gets elected, we want U.S. to take the leadership on 

religious freedom issues in some countries, especially Vietnam. 

Mr. SMITH. If the United States leads and leads with transparency and strength and really speaks truth to power and not 

only affects the dictatorships of the world including the one that’s 

being focused on but also, I would think, the other democracies who 

might take their lead from that. 

But as you said, if we lower that bar so low, it is, like, everyone 

just doesn’t care or cares a lot less than they would have and the 

dictatorships like China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba, look at that 

and say, they have abandoned human rights—it is all talk—it is 

all rhetoric. 

And I am wondering, when Raul Castro said to the President or 

said in that meeting, give me the list of prisoners and I will release 

them, he should have said, here is the list. 

He was sitting right there. The State Department has a list. We 

have a list. We have made a trip down to the Embassy of Cuba several weeks ago trying to get a visa. I want to go. I want to give 

a list to Raul Castro. 

I was told by the Ambassador here in Washington to the United 

States from Cuba that there are certain parameters that would 

have to be followed about who I could meet with in terms of the 

dissident community. And I said do other congressional delegations 

do that and he said yes. 

So they are all pre-screened. Only certain people can be spoken 

with, or to, in an orchestration of a Potemkin village and they come 

back glowing about how great things are in Cuba. Well, we see this 

happening again and again. So that whole idea of human rights 

leadership—if you would like to answer that. 

Let me also ask you, Pastor Loan, you talked about Deacon Ngai 

being beaten to death. You might give us some additional details 

about that. 

I know it is very painful. But just so we know what happened 

in that incident, you know, so we have it fully on the record in 

terms of that brutality. But maybe you could start, Dr. Thang, 

first. 

Pastor LOAN. Deacon Hoang Van Ngai was peaceful. He was a 

deacon and one day he went to his farm and they went to his farm 

and get them—beat them there and brought them to their office, 

their jail, and just tortured him and beat him to death. 

After that the girl—the authority did not let anybody see the 

body of the deacon and said that he died not because of torture but 

because he wanted to kill himself, that Deacon Ngai wanted to kill 

43

himself and did something to himself. That is why he died. It’s not 

them. 

And they told me not to say a word about it and threatened my 

life if I did say something against them that testified that they 

were the one that beat Deacon Ngai to death and tortured him. 

Mr. THANG. Mr. Chairman, I am very knowledgeable about that 

case. In 2013, Deacon Hoang Van Ngai, a Hmong Christian, who—

and whose family were relocated from the northern part of Vietnam, the mountainous part of Vietnam, all the way down to the 

central part of Vietnam in order to escape persecution in the north. 

But he didn’t fare any better. He and his brother were captured. 

Actually, they captured—the police captured their wives first and 

held them hostage. So Mr. Ngai and the brother had to report 

themselves to the police in order to set free their wives. 

And during detention the police tortured him, forcing him to renounce his faith and he refused repeatedly and he got tortured repeatedly until he died. And then a few months later the entire family—actually, his extended family wrote a petition to the government requesting investigation into his death. 

Then his cousin, Hoang Van Sang, living in the north, all the 

way in the north, got arrested by the police, taken into police custody for 10 days. 

After 10 days of detention the police delivered his corpse to his 

family and told the family that if anyone there should speak out 

about his death, this is the fate that they would suffer. 

And therefore about ten families of Mr. Ngai among his cousins 

and brothers had to escape to Thailand and our team in Thailand 

helped them. 

Fortunately, a number of them have already been recognized as 

refugees. And one thing I can say is that in 2014 it was Boat People SOS in conjunction with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, CSW, 

we broke the news about his death and not Pastor Rmah Loan at 

all. 

But that pointed to a very disturbing trend here. The perpetrators of torture have been treated with impunity in Vietnam while 

those who reported or believed to have reported torture and human 

rights abuses are being persecuted and threatened with incarceration, imprisonment, or even death. 

So, clearly, Vietnam is not intent on implementing the Convention Against Torture and that kind of policy will only encourage 

more violence and more torture, and this really is pointing out that 

our Government hasn’t made public condemnation against that 

kind of practice. 

Mr. SMITH. With regards to CPC designation Ambassador 

Saperstein made very clear and they have always had this authority that such a designation can be made at any time. 

It doesn’t have to wait for an annual report. When the information on the ground merits it a designation, either improvement or 

a downgrade—in other words, a CPC designation, can be made. 

My question would be in your view should Vietnam receive such 

a designation, especially in light of Ambassador Saperstein’s visit 

and Mrs. Hong’s brutal beating, simply for meeting with the Ambassador-at-Large for international religious freedom. 

44

If that isn’t an outrage that is like a tip of the iceberg for all the 

rest of the cruelty meted out by the Vietnamese I don’t know what 

is. 

But your thoughts on that? 

Mr. THANG. Mr. Chairman, clearly, it is systematic because that 

is the law. There is a system. It occurs everywhere, not just in one 

place—repeatedly, not just one time. 

It is egregious. Torture is egregious. Forced renouncement of 

faith is egregious. Imprisonment is egregious. And it is ongoing. So 

if we just go by the books, clearly, Vietnam should be designated 

as CPC, no doubt about that. 

I would like to point out one other thing about the U.N. Special 

Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Last year in September, we organized the first conference on freedom of religion or 

belief in Southeast Asia and we held it in Bangkok in late September. A number of Cao Dai religious leaders and dignitaries 

came to that conference to meet with the U.N. Special Rapporteur. 

And when they returned to Vietnam they were placed under the 

visa travel ban, and that’s what Ms. Duong just mentioned. So that 

is very outrageous. 

There is an agreement between the Vietnamese Government and 

the U.N. Human Rights Council. That is, people who talk, who report, who speak to or who make reports to the U.N. Special 

Rapporteur should not be mistreated or punished. 

Mr. SMITH. I will just conclude. Pastor Loan, when you talked 

about and testified about how the government controls the words 

that can be used it reminds me of—there was a National Geographic documentary about this eye doctor who went to Pyongyang 

and was actually helping people with cataracts and other eye problems and many went from being almost blind to being able to see. 

Kim Jong Il was the dictator then and his picture was in this 

mass meeting room where everybody gathered to thank the doctor, 

and the thanks to the doctor was slim to almost none and their 

praise and worship of the dictator just eclipsed all else. 

It was the government—the cult of personality—and obviously 

when you have an insecurity on the part of a government like Vietnam where they have to have the thank yous first to them, then 

to God and anyone else, and all the other wordsmithing that they 

impose upon even those that are recognized churches it just shows 

a gross insecurity on the part of that government. 

A psychiatrist could have a field day with that, it would seem to 

me. Dr. Thang, did you want to comment on it? 

Mr. THANG. Just about that, I would like to remind everyone 

here that what is happening with Pastor Rmah Loan’s church is actually about a church that has been legally recognized by the Government of Vietnam. 

His church is probably the largest Christian church in central 

highlands, and if there is a Department of State delegation or 

USCIRF delegation or Member of Congress visiting Vietnam, they 

most likely would be invited to go to that church to showcase how 

much freedom of religion there is in Vietnam. 

And yet, behind closed doors, that is what is happening. A member of that church—a key member of that church—that is Deacon 

Hoang Van Ngai—was tortured to death because he refused to reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:15 Sep 22, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\062216\20530 SHIRL
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nounce his faith and then his pastor was prohibited from making 

any mention about his death, and then family members have been 

tracked down and threatened to the point they had to flee their 

home villages. 

And now the pastor is in the U.S. fearing persecution or even imprisonment and death upon return to Vietnam. So that is how a 

state-sanctioned church is being treated, let alone unrecognized 

independent religious communities just like the Cao Dai group here 

that she’s represented. 

Mr. SMITH. Before I ask you if you have anything final you would 

like to say, I would like to recognize in the audience two very distinguished persons. 

First, Joseph Rees, Ambassador Rees, our first Ambassador to 

East Timor, or Timor-Leste, who also served many years ago as 

chief of staff and chief counsel for the International Operations and 

Human Rights Subcommittee. 

In fact, when we were doing many of the initiatives to try to rescue those people who were going to be sent back during the Comprehensive Plan of Action, working with Dr. Thang, Joseph played 

a pivotal role in ensuring that those 20,000-plus people came here 

as well as other things. 

Also, Anh ‘‘Joseph’’ Cao is here as well, a former Congressman 

and good friend, first Vietnamese-American Congressman, and was 

a great leader when he was here. We miss him, but it is great to 

see him and I know he works alongside Boat People SOS as well. 

Would any of you like to say anything before we conclude? 

Pastor LOAN. I know for sure if I return back to Vietnam there 

will be punishment for me for sure. So I would like to ask to stay 

here. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Pastor LOAN. Would you help me get that? Thank you for your 

time. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. The hearing is adjourned, and I thank 

you again. 

[Whereupon, at 3:31 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(47)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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Æ


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