Vietnamese dissident Nguyen Quang A spent much of Tuesday as a tourist with plainclothes cops – eating fish noodle soup, visiting a temple and a fortune-teller – returning home just as President Barack Obama took off from Hanoi aboard Air Force One.
“It was a compulsory tour,” joked Quang A, 69, a well-known critic of the Communist Party who is famous for creative stunts of his own to make Vietnam’s leaders pay more than lip-service to political inclusiveness.
Quang A, a former IT entrepreneur, was one of more than 100 Vietnamese who tried to run as independents for last weekend’s election to the parliament, which is tightly controlled by the Communist Party. Almost all failed to get on the ballot.
Hope that Obama comes to Vietnam to improve human rights? I don’t think so. Interests of US weapon firms are the main thing
Dissent was once the domain of a tiny number in Vietnam who met behind closed doors or found themselves behind bars. It is not as rare these days. Before Obama’s visit, a spate of protests erupted over a mass fish kill along the central coast.
However, the media is censored and the most outspoken critics of the party’s monopoly on power face harassment, arrest and jail for “anti-state propaganda”.
Quang had an inkling he wouldn’t make it to his appointment with Obama, as he put on his best suit and posed for a “selfie”. Before walking out of the door of his Hanoi home on Tuesday morning, he uploaded the image on Facebook and typed in a message: “May be intercepted, arrested. Advising so people know.”
It took only a few minutes before 10 plainclothes police bundled him into a car and drove him away.