Ho Chi Minh Picture Must Go, Judge Says

SANTA ANA —  A judge Thursday ordered a video store in Westminster’s Little Saigon neighborhood to take down a Vietnamese flag and picture of Ho Chi Minh, symbols the owner says he put up on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a defiant expression of his free speech rights.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Tam Nomoto Schumann issued a preliminary injunction requiring Truong Van Tran to remove the symbols of Vietnam’s Communist government, which have drawn hundreds of Vietnamese American protesters daily since Sunday.

The items were removed several hours later by Tran’s wife.

News of the order prompted the estimated 400 demonstrators outside the store on Bolsa Avenue to erupt into a show of jubilation, with victory songs of the South Vietnamese military and a traditional dragon dance. Delighted protesters pulled down an effigy of Ho Chi Minh and stomped it into a heap on the ground.

“We are very happy,” said Ngo Ky, 47. “This is a victory. We hope that any Communist sympathizers learned a lesson here and won’t do this again. The judge did the right thing.”

A lawyer for Tran’s landlord argued that the flag and picture violated a provision of his rental agreement prohibiting displays that create a public nuisance. The building owner also has begun eviction proceedings.

Although no one appeared in court to argue the store owner’s case, civil rights advocates condemned the judge’s order, which could become permanent after a hearing next month.

“No state official, and that includes the judge, should stop somebody from expressing their right to speak,” said attorney Peter Eliasberg of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Every strong 1st Amendment principle shouldn’t yield to what seems to me a pretty thin contract argument.”

An attorney for property owner Danh Nhut Quach, who obtained the injunction, said free speech rights don’t allow Tran to create a public nuisance.

“Speech can be restricted as to time and location,” said attorney Jonathan Slipp. “You cannot stand up in a crowded elevator and scream, ‘Fire!’ Similarly you can’t go into a community that harbors such strong emotional feelings with respect to the Communist government of Vietnam and parade a flag and just challenge people, which he essentially did, to come take it down.”

Tran, owner of Hitek TV and VCR, said Thursday that he simply wanted to exercise his right to speak his mind.

He said he was thinking of King and his rights as an American citizen when he decided to post the display Sunday.

“I love this community, I love the U.S. and I love Vietnam,” he said in his first interview since the controversy began.

Tran said he is not a Communist but believes that the current Vietnamese government has improved the nation since he left in 1980. He felt pressured into making such an extreme gesture because of criticism from community members for his support of normalizing trade relations with Vietnam.

“They pushed him into a wall. They said he’s a Communist. He just wants to make a point that he has the right to speak his mind,” said a family member, who declined to be named for fear of retribution.

Tran, 37, was a teenager when he came to the United States in 1980 as one of many “boat people” fleeing Vietnam after the war, said the relative, speaking in Vietnamese. Tran has returned to Vietnam several times to visit family members and attend his father’s funeral.

“He went home and saw that many things have changed. People’s lives have improved,” said the family member.

Heartened by what he saw in his homeland, Tran became an advocate of improved relations between the United States and Vietnam.

Although many protesters said they believe in free speech, they likened displaying a portrait of Ho Chi Minh in Little Saigon to putting up a picture of Adolf Hitler in a Jewish community or one of Pol Pot in a Cambodian neighborhood.

“This guy betrayed the community,” said Tony Nguyn, 52, who spent 10 years in a Communist re-education camp after serving in the South Vietnamese army. “He stabbed us in the back.”

The crowd cheered wildly as Tran’s wife left the store, holding the flag up in a final gesture of defiance.

“I’m really happy today,” said Bao Duong, 16. “I’ve been here four days. My throat hurts from yelling for freedom and human rights.”