We’re happy to report that William Nguyen’s release from a Vietnamese jail gives us hope — not only in the ability of individuals to make a difference, but in our elected representatives to put partisanship aside and come together for a common cause.
Nguyen, a Houstonian and Yale University graduate, was beaten and arrested by Vietnamese police June 10 while taking part in peaceful protests in Ho Chi Minh City against “special economic zones” that would lease land to foreign investors for up to 99 years.
Most of the leases are expected to go to Chinese investors, which many Vietnamese see as a threat to their sovereignty. China and Vietnam have a long and tumultuous history, including ongoing territorial disputes and a 1979 war that left more than 25,000 Vietnamese dead. Protesters were also marching against a new cybersecurity law, which many say gives the Communist-ruled state more power to crack down on dissent.
Nguyen, an American citizen whose mother emigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. in the 1970s, was visiting Ho Chi Minh City on a stopover before graduating from a master’s program in public policy at Singapore University. He reportedly was arrested and beaten after asking police to remove barricades to the demonstrators’ path. In a video, Nguyen is shown being dragged through the streets, his face bloodied, by plainclothes policemen.
Tried and found guilty of “disrupting public order,” Nguyen was deported Friday after appeals from his family, this newspaper, the U.S. embassy in Vietnam and elected officials.
The U.S. government should actively support and protect American citizens who lend their voices to the preservation and proliferation of human freedom. That’s exactly what happened here.
While in Vietnam this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Nguyen’s arrest with officials and “encouraged a speedy resolution to his case,” according to a State Department spokesperson.
Moreover, our elected representatives in Texas and across the country came together to call for Nguyen’s release and safe return. On July 18, a bipartisan group of 19 senators and members of Congress, including John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, sent a letter to Pompeo reiterating that “one of our most important responsibilities as elected representatives is to protect the American people both at home and abroad” and urging him to “use all diplomatic means” at his disposal “to ensure Mr. Nguyen’s safe return to the United States.” Those efforts paid off.
The takeaway here is not just that the men and women we send to Washington are there to represent, serve and protect the everyday Americans who exercise their franchise in free and fair elections.
There’s a larger lesson — one that speaks to what it means to be American, to exercise one’s “unalienable rights” beyond borders or nation states. Among those: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Editorial by The Dallas Morning News
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