Demonstration Against Dam Vinh Hung at Santa Clara Convention Center

Dam Vinh Hung, a very popular singer from Vietnam, is doing his annual concert tour in North America.  He was in San Jose over the weekend and  performed at the Santa Clara Convention Center last night.  The event was sold out with all 600 tickets sold.  His concert in San Jose (November 2009) was also a big hit. Dam Vinh Hung has been doing worldwide concert since 2004. Since he is from Vietnam, the critics from the anti-communist folks in the Vietnamese-American community have claimed that he is a cultural agent of the government trying to spread communist propaganda.

By 5:00 PM yesterday,  there was a large contigent of demonstrators (about 350 people) gathered in front of the convention center with their flags and slogans.   US Congressman Joseph Cao (R) from New Orleans was also there to give support.

The Santa Clara police department charged the concert organizer an extra $11,000 for crowd control and security.  Apparently, the additional 15 policemen did not deter Ly Tong, an anti-communist activist, to buy a front row ticket to attend the concert.  He dressed up as an elderly woman and came to the stage pretending to give flowers to Dam Vinh Hung.  And then suddenly he took out a Mace spray and temporarily stunned the singer with the pepper spray -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a3sKG-rU4M


Security was there quickly to take away Ly Tong and the show went on despite the little interruption.  At the end of the show, the audience stood up and gave Dam Vinh Hung a thunderous standing ovation.