Member of the European Parliament, Marco Pannella, and Italian Senator, Marco Perduca (both from the Nonviolent Radical Party, transnational and transparty), who are currently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and who last week obtained a regular visa to enter Vietnam, has today been informed by the Italian Embassy in Hanoi that the Vietnamese Government, which apparently received several letters and messages of protest concerning the visit or the Radical Parliamentarians in the Country, informed the Italian diplomats, that Hanoi is not in a position to guarantee the personal security of our colleagues.
Last week, Mr. Pannella and Mr. Perduca requested a multiple entry tourist visa and received it without any problems; at that time, neither the EC office nor the Italian Embassy had been able to arrange meetings with local MPs or the Ministry of Foreign and/or Internal Affairs. They will enter Vietnam via Ho Chi Minh City [formerly Prey Nokor], where they would try to meet the Venerable Tich Quang Do, leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, whose case was also recalled in the resolution on Vietnam we recently adopted in our Parliament. |
