US Diplomat Beaten For Visiting Priest

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/07/us-diplomat-christian-marchant-is-beat-up-by-vietnamese-cops/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-w%7Cdl1%7Csec4_lnk2%7C194135US

Protests After Diplomat Is Beaten Up by Vietnamese CopsVietnamese police beat up an American diplomat and repeatedly slammed his legs in a car door after he tried to visit a high-profile dissident, according to U.S. officials.

Washington has made a strong protest over the treatment of Christian Marchant, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Marchant was roughed up on Wednesday outside a home for retired priests in the central Vietnamese city of Hue, where Catholic priest Rev. Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, 63, is being held under house arrest.

Pro-democracy campaigner Ly, who has served almost 15 years in jail for his activism, told Radio Free Asia that police wrestled Marchant to the ground as he approached the retirement home and then hustled him into a squad car. The Associated Press quoted an anonymous Washington official saying that officers repeatedly shut a car door on his legs
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