Vo Van Ai

Võ Văn Ái in a march in Partanna, Sicily in 1967. In the picture there are Danilo Dolci, Bruno Zevi, Ernesto Treccani, Antonio Uccello, Lorenzo Barbera and Peppino Impastato. Võ Văn Ái (19 October 1935 – 26 January 2023) was a Vietnamese poet, journalist, and human-rights activist. He is an expert in the history of Buddhism and of Vietnam. He was a Buddhist and had lived in Paris since the 1950s.

Ái was founder and President of Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, Director of the International Buddhist Information Bureau, and the Overseas Spokesman of the independent Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), which is currently banned in Vietnam.

A specialist on human rights and religious freedom, he contributed frequently to reports and testimonies to the United Nations, U.S. Congress, and European Parliament.

Early life and education Born in central Vietnam on 19 October 1935, he moved with his family to Hue when he was five years old. He was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured at the age of 11 for participating in the resistance movement for the independence of Vietnam.

In 1955, he began studying in Paris. Initially he studied medicine, but then enrolled at the Sorbonne to study literature.

Career

Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) From 1963 to 1970, he represented the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam abroad and worked actively in the nonviolent Buddhist movement for peace and freedom.

Vietnam War During the Vietnam War, he described it as a conflict between "two groups of missionaries" in which the Vietnamese themselves did not have a voice.

Que Me Beginning in 1970, he worked in publishing in Paris. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, he and several friends in Paris founded the magazine Que Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam.

Critic of Communism After the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, he continued to monitor human rights abuses and violations of religious freedom in Vietnam.

In October 2013, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by ÁiVan Ai about Vietnam's "brutal crackdown on free speech," which coincided with a major diplomatic offensive.

In April 2014, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Ái in memory of activist Dinh Dang Dinh, who had recently died of medical neglect. Dinh had spent years in prison for his activism, during which time he had contracted cancer but been denied treatment.

Other activities and memberships Ái was latterly the Vice-President for Asia of the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). He was also Director of the International Buddhist Information Bureau, and Overseas Spokesman of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. He belonged to the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief. and contributed to several major international studies on religion, such as Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report (1997), Religious Freedom in the World (2000), and Human Rights and Asian Values (2000).