Vietnam Protester Loses Appeal Options

[Jayson]

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,14...2131073,00.html

Vietnam protester loses appeal
By Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld the 5-year prison term for a woman who tried to light herself on fire in front of a Vietnamese official at a San Francisco hotel.

Ngoc Hanh Dang Nguyen was subdued and arrested more than three years ago after trying to light herself aflame before Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung as he addressed business leaders at the hotel. She was convicted of arson and assault, but she says all she was doing was protesting the Vietnamese government.

A San Francisco federal jury cleared her of charges that she tried to attack a foreign dignitary.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday dismissed claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and said the government did not violate her rights because of its delays in providing her counsel a list of witnesses the government might call during trial.


Self immolation is a traditional Vietnamese form of protest that gained international attention in 1963 when a famous photograph was taken of a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire in what was then Saigon.

Historians say self immolation is an outgrowth of a Buddhist concept.

of nonviolence and could be a practice more than 2,000 years old.

According to testimony during her 10-day trial, Ngoc Hanh entered a hotel ballroom where the Vietnamese official spoke, reeking of gasoline and carrying a black satchel.

She walked to the front of the room, opened the bag containing a jug of gasoline and a torch. As she struggled to light the gas-soaked torches, authorities tackled her, according to testimony.

Ngoc Hanh, now of France, is married with four children. She escaped Vietnam in 1989. In an interview, she said she arrived in San Francisco, ready to set her self on fire, 48 hours after learning that a Vietnamese trade delegation was meeting in San Francisco in December 2001.

[DAI_VIET]

While I respect her courage and bravery for doing this in an nonviolence protest, I also think that she's taking this way too serious.

People like her should stop for 1 second and think again before hurting themselves.

[vIeTpRidEs_wOrLd...]

While I respect her courage and bravery for doing this in an nonviolence protest, I also think that she's taking this way too serious.

People like her should stop for 1 second and think again before hurting themselves.

she needs to take care of her kids man !!

[Nam Quoc Son Ha]

She shouldn't be doing this. What a shame

[arun]

OMG. this woman shouldnt have kids in the first place. how irresponsible. May God punish her for eternity.

[neinei]

OMG. this woman shouldnt have kids in the first place. how irresponsible. May God punish her for eternity.

just curious, why you do you keep on bringing old topics back?

[arun]

FOA, its not old. and second its worth discussing.