Hanoi Freeing Bay-Area Doctor Held 2 Months

A Vietnamese immigrant who now lives in San Francisco is scheduled to be released by the Vietnamese government today after being held two months in Hanoi on charges of anti-government activity there.

The Vietnamese government said it is “expelling” Dr. Bui Duy Tam, who was arrested March 30. The government also disclosed that Bui had suffered “a light cerebral hemorrhage” while detained in Hanoi but said his health “is generally good.”

Bui, a physician on the staff of San Quentin Prison who is well known throughout California’s large Vietnamese community because of his medical and cultural work, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. His son, Dr. Thien Bui, 29, a San Jose orthodontist, said in a telephone interview conducted Thursday that the Vietnamese government’s accusations against his father were wrong because “he is not involved in politics.”

Bui Duy Tam, 56, went to Vietnam in March to visit his ailing mother, according to Thien Bui. He was arrested in Hanoi and accused of having “brought into Vietnam materials detrimental to national security to be distributed in the country. . . . “

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) spearheaded congressional efforts in Washington to win his release.

“It was very difficult because we (the United States) have no formal diplomatic relations with Vietnam,” Pelosi said Thursday in a telephone interview from Washington. “I’m glad he’s being released for his sake and the sake of his family but also because the United States was on the path towards more normal relations with Vietnam, and this incident was an obstacle to better relations.”

The Vietnamese government notified Pelosi on Wednesday that Bui will be expelled from that country today and will be put on a plane to Bangkok. It was in an earlier letter to Pelosi that Vietnamese officials mentioned the “materials detrimental to national security” for which they said they were holding Bui; but that letter did not elaborate on what type of materials Bui allegedly had.

Shortly after his arrest, Vietnamese authorities also announced that a popular Vietnamese writer, Duong Thu Huong, had been detained. Huong, a member of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, had reportedly given Bui some information, including a list of dissidents in Vietnam who should be invited to a conference in the United States.

Bui’s son said Thursday that his father emigrated to the United States in 1980 and became a U.S. citizen in 1986.

“My father was a dean of a medical school in Hue before coming to the United States,” said Thien Bui. “He is very patriotic about Vietnam, but he is not political.”

Wallace reported from Bangkok and Billiter from Orange County.