President Obama talks human rights concerns in Vietnam; activists barred

Chiqui Guyjoco Wednesday, May 25, 2016

President Barack Obama raised human rights concerns in communist Vietnam during a speech on Tuesday, May 24 after noticing that several Vietnamese activists he was supposed to meet were not able to make it.

U.S. President Barack Obama attends a meeting with members of Vietnamese Civil Society at a hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam May 24, 2016. | REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA

"There's still areas of significant concerns in terms of areas of free speech, freedom of assembly, accountability with respect to government," the president said in a public address, attended by about 2,300 well-dressed Vietnamese and aired on state-run TV.

His statement came after acknowledging that Vietnam has progressed greatly in terms of its economy. Before giving his speech, Obama spent hours in a meeting with six Vietnamese civil society leaders at JW Marriott Hotel in Hanoi where he noticed that several others were not present in his requested meeting.

"I was taken on a touristic tour," businessman Nguyen Quang A told New York Times.

Quang A claimed he's been taken by security officers at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and driven 50 miles east of Hanoi. He was also one of the more than 100 independent candidates who ran for Parliament in last weekend's elections but failed to get a ballot. Quang A said the government disqualified him.

"Before going. May be intercepted, arrested. Advising so people know," Quang A was able to write on his Facebook page with a photo of himself dressing up, before the officials arrived.

"Security people have been guarding me at my home for the last two days," lawyer Ha Huy Son told Agence France-Presse.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, named blogger and journalist Pham Doan Trang as another activist who was prevented from attending Obama's meeting.

Human Rights Watch records an estimated 110 political detainees in Vietnam.

"We feel really motivated to later express ourselves freely," 23-years-old Ngoc Dao told CNN.

Obama also broached the topic of U.S.-Vietnam relations especially post the Vietnam war, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the lifting of U.S.-imposed embargo on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam as a way to improve the Southeast Asian nation's security.

"(Vietnam) should cooperate with the Americans more," 21-year-old Tung Dong said. "For thousands of years we have been under the influence of China. We might as well have some Western influence now, more Western influence now."