For Immediate Release
Contact: [email protected], 703-538-2190
July 9, 2018
On July 10, some 250 Vietnamese American advocates from 22 states will participate in the seventh annual Vietnam Advocacy Day. Through meetings to be held primarily on Capitol Hill throughout the day, participants will engage members of Congress in specific actions to ensure that religious freedom, workers’ rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the unconditional release of all Vietnamese prisoners of conscience and fair compensation for property of U.S. citizens that the Vietnamese government has expropriated are included in the US government’s foreign policies towards Vietnam.
Besides individual meetings, the event’s plenary session in the morning will feature a panel discussion on “Persecution Against Religious Communities – State and Non-State Actors.” Panelists will include US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Commissioner Tony Perkins, Dr. Scott Flipse with Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Tony Tran with Association of Con Dau Parishioners and Michelle Nguyen with Vietnam Coalition Against Torture. Other speakers will include Senator John Cornyn (Republican, Texas); Deputy Assistant Secretary Scott Busby of the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; human rights lawyer Jared Genser and Kate Barth of Freedom Now.
On July 11, a delegation of Vietnamese Americans will attend meetings with State Department officials, USCIRF commissioners, and staff of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
