Cong Thanh Do

Who is Cong Thanh Do?

Cong Thanh Do is a Vietnamese American human rights activist.

Do emigrated from Vietnam to the US in 1982. He advocates a multi-party democratic system for Vietnam, and has been accused of plotting to overthrow the Vietnamese government. On 14 August 2006 he was arrested while on holiday in Phan Thiet and held in jail in Ho Chi Minh City without trial. On 14 August 2006 he began a hunger strike. His imprisonment was protested by a petition to the US Congress calling for the blocking of economic trade agreement, Permanent Normal Trade Relations, PNTR, between the US and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, SRVN. Under international pressure, the SRVN released Do from jail and deported him back to the United States on 21 September 2006.

He is a democracy activist for political change in Vietnam and his written various political topics calling for democratic elections in Vietnam and posting them on the internet in the United States.

He was forced to leave his country of South Vietnam due to political changes when the communist North Vietnamese Army defeated the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, after the Fall of Saigon and the nation was ruled under a communist dictatorship.