The last event of the comity supporting NGUYEN Tien Trung took place on the 22nd of October 2009. This event started by a press meeting occuring at the INSA (the university where Trung studied) followed by a meeting on the main place of Rennes, main city of Brittany, France.
The director of the INSA as well as many journalists (France3, Ouest-France, Le Mensuel de Rennes and RSF) attended both meetings.
The main speakers were:
• Mrs Mono Bras, advisor for the region Brittany, assistant of the mayor of Guimgamp.
• Roselyne Lefrançois, assistant of the mayor of Rennes, in charge of international and European affairs.
• Jean-François Julliard, secretary of the association Reporter Without Borders.
All of them attended the event because they strongly reacted on the 7th of July 2009 after the arrest of Trung.
Alain Jigorel, director of the INSA of Rennes, the university where Trung studied IT started the press meeting: “I am director of the INSA but I am here above all as a simple French citizen to defend freedom.” He highlighted the fact that engineers have to respect social and human values and above all freedom.
Mrs Roselyne Lefrançois: “I am here today to show the involvement of the city of Rennes in favor of Nguyen Tien Trung who studied in Brittany.” She believes that it is highly important to know why Trung was arrested the 7th of July. She added: “It is great that people get involved to develop freedom throughout the world.”
She notified again the two letters asking for more information about Trung sent to the Vietnamese embassy in accordance with both the mayor of Rennes and assembly of the city. She added that a letter was sent to Bernard Kouchner, minister of foreign affairs to ask him to give us more news about Trung thanks to his link to the French embassy in Vietnam.
Mrs Mono Bras represented Monsieur Christian Guyonvarc’h, vice president of foreign affairs. She confirmed the fact that the two letters notified above were correctly sent. She also added that the government of Vietnam has been in charge of security commission for the UNO since October 2009. Consequently, the government of Vietnam has to respect fundamentals of the UNO and among them Human rights which are universal. She also expected members of the UNO to react to the current situation in Vietnam. She also wondered how the «Trung case» would end since very strong sentences such as death have already been used against dissidents. Moreover Trung accomplished his military obligations. The government had since nothing to reproach him. Mrs Mono Bras qualified the arrest of Trung as scandalous and added that the regional council asks for the freedom of Trung.
Mrs Mireille Ducassé, in charge of the IT department at the INSA, was one of Trung’s lecturers. She said that Trung was a good and serious student with a strong personality. She added that Trung spent one semester in Danemark and one in the USA to accomplish respectively an exchange program and an internship. She affirmed that the arrest of Trung was truly stupid.
Mr Jean François Juiliard, general secretary of RWB added that Trung was nominated for the price of « cyber freedom » of RWF in December. He believes that the arrest of Trung is representative of the countries where the access to internet is not free of access. He reminded us of the worldwide ranking about freedom of speech recently published by RWB where Vietnam ranks 166th over 175 countries. He added that Trung and 9 other Vietnamese cyberdissidents were arrested since they wrote articles about freedom and democracy what we can not understand in France. He thinks that the only ways to change the current situation in Vietnam are both the international pressure and the media. Indeed, the Vietnamese government is afraid of emitting a bad image to the rest of the world. He suggested to go on with the current actions we are leading.
Hoai Nam NGUYEN, Trung’s brother, vice-president of the comity supporting Trung said that Trung’s family did not get any information since Trung’s arrest, four months ago. He indicated that a lawyer cancelled his action for Trung because of the pressure of the police. He then presented the other Vietnamese taking part into the meeting. Among them, the writer Vu Thu Hien, Mr Nguyen Quoc Nam (member of the alliance for the democracy in Vietnam), Mr Nguyen Viet Quoc (member of the association of the young Vietnamese for democracy).
The atmosphere became really emotive when Remy, one of Trung best friend, began to cry.
Interviews of participants closed the press meeting.
The participants of the press meeting then reached the main place of Rennes to gather signatures and inform people about Trung’s arrest. More than 300 signatures were gathered.
Trung in the newspapers :
* Le Mensuel de Rennes
http://www.lemensuelderennes.fr/article/actualite/un-ex-rennais-emprisonne-au-vietnam-pour-dissidence-politique/index.html
* Ouest France
http://www.ouest-france.fr/ofdernmin_-Manifestation-de-soutien-a-l%E2%80%99ancien-etudiant-rennais-Nguyen-Tien-Trung_-1123957_actu.Htm
