Vietnam Deports Vietnamese-American from California Dissident Group

Communist Vietnam deported a Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist last week, according to a report in New American Media. Leon Truong was arrested on Nov. 17 with five other pro-democracy activists, including one U.S. citizen, a French citizen, one Thai and two Vietnamese nationals, accused of plotting terrorism against the communist state. Truong, a member of the banned California-based Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party), left on a Taipei-bound China Airlines flight from Saigon, Vietnam Television reported. The arrests had led to a rally of Vietnamese Americans outside the Vietnamese embassy in Washington, a protest letter to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung from a group of Congress members, and a call to explain the charges from the U.S. ambassador to Hanoi.