Free Will Nguyen
U.S. must press for release of Houstonian unjustly held by Vietnamese government.
His face is bloodied as a group of men drag him down a street, grabbing him by his legs and an arm and barely lifting him off the pavement.
That disturbing image emerged on the internet shortly after police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested Will Nguyen, a 32-year-old graduate student from Houston. Days later, another troubling video aired on state-run television, showing what’s clearly a coerced confession in which Nguyen apologizes for breaking the law.
Those two televised recordings are the only signs we’ve seen of a native Houstonian locked up by Vietnam’s authoritarian government, which has a long and odious history of suppressing free speech and punishing critics with lengthy prison sentences. His family justifiably worries about what’s happening to him while he’s in custody.
Joining a protest march in a country with a repressive government may not be the smartest thing a young American can do while he’s on vacation. Nonetheless, a Houstonian who’s been jailed by an authoritarian foreign regime needs help. That’s why every member of our congressional delegation should join the Trump administration in pressing the Vietnamese government to free Will Nguyen.
His mother left Vietnam in 1979, and, like so many other immigrants fleeing the communist regime there, she settled in Houston. Her son William was born in our city and did so well in school he ended up graduating from Yale, where he majored in southeast Asian studies. He also won a full scholarship and became class president at a postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore.
Nguyen has traveled extensively in southeast Asia — he speaks fluent Vietnamese and Mandarin — and he happened to be visiting Vietnam earlier this month when protesters took to the streets. Demonstrators have bravely criticized a government proposal for special economic zones, which they believe will favor Chinese investors. Nguyen was apparently swept up in the protests, which he documented on social media.
A photograph he posted on his Twitter account showed demonstrators marching down streets. Another shot showed security forces walking with the protesters. His last post showed a line of police clad in riot gear confronting the demonstrators. What happened next isn’t exactly clear, but other people on the street — either demonstrators or bystanders — captured the video images of Nguyen’s bloodied and limp body being dragged away by what were apparently security forces.
Nguyen’s detention is disturbingly reminiscent of another instance in which one of our fellow Houstonians was taken into custody by a communist government. In 2015, a Houston businesswoman named Sandy PhanGillis was detained as she accompanied a local trade delegation visiting China. Authorities accused her of being a spy, a crime that could have carried a death sentence. Her husband rallied public support here in Houston and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised the issue in talks with his Chinese counterpart, leading Beijing to release her after more than two years in custody.
What happened in the Phan-Gillis case proves that pressure exerted by the public and by the U.S. government can have a profound impact when Americans are unjustly detained in foreign lands. Nguyen’s family has praised two congressmen from Houston — U.S. Reps. John Culberson and Al Green — for helping obtain information about his case. The Trump administration has expressed concern, and three members of Congress from California have released a joint statement demanding the Vietnamese government set him free.
That’s clearly not enough. Every member of our congressional delegation should join in the call for this Houstonian’s release. Meanwhile, the Trump administration — which deserves praise for securing the freedom of Phan-Gillis as well as three Americans held by North Korea — should exert whatever diplomatic pressure is necessary as it calls on Vietnam to free Will Nguyen.