Vietnam police charge man with rape after American woman alleges attack

(20 Aug 2026) RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Hanoi, Vietnam - 13 August 2026 1. Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam and her father walking in street 2. Various of Tam and her father waiting for taxi 3. Close of hands 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, accuser: “I was assaulted on July 5th at night while I was sleeping. I went with people I thought I could trust and that just wasn't the case. You hear stories like this and, you know, you don't think you'd ever be one to experience it.” 5. Tam speaking during interview 6. Close of hands 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, accuser: “They went back to the crime scene where it happened. I had to point out the room number. And I think the scariest thing for me was going back to where it happened. And I understand it's part of the investigation, but them having me walk into the room where I was asleep at night and them, you know, telling me I need to get on the bed so they can see what happened. It was really a mental toll. I remember just standing inside the room, shaking, crying, not being able to talk because it brought back so many memories. It's basically a place where I didn't physically die, but a part of me is gone and it's in that room.” 8. Close of Tam 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, accuser: “And, you know, I'm not saying all people here are bad. I've made some great friends here after the incident that supported me tremendously. And without those girls, I don't think I would have been able to push through because they even told me, and they're Vietnamese girls, they were born here, they went to school here, that I have to fight this. I have to fight not only for myself, but for them and for the other girls out there. And it doesn't matter what their family says because at the end of the day I said, no. I told him no multiple times and he still pushed himself on me.” 10. Various of Tam and her father ASSOCIATED PRESS Hanoi, Vietnam - 20 August 2026 11. Wide of Pham Thu Hang, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, during press conference 12. Close of flag 13. SOUNDBITE (Vietnamese) Pham Thu Hang, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson: "The Vietnamese authority has launched proceedings (of the case) according to Vietnamese laws.” ASSOCIATED PRESS Hanoi, Vietnam - 18 August 2026 14. Various exteriors of U.S Embassy ASSOCIATED PRESS Coccorino, Italy - 19 August 2026 ++QUALITY AS INCOMING++ 15. SOUNDBITE (English) Patricia Gossman, Associate Director, Asia Division of the Human Rights Watch: "There's enormous stigma globally to any aspect of sexual reporting or, you know, publicly acknowledging that such things have happened, which has always been a problem to reporting, as you say, whether women or men, sexual abuse. And of course, within families it's pronounced, quite often. In fact, maybe the first place people would experience that pressure, just don't report it, let it go, you know, deal with it. So again, I don't think Vietnam is unusual in that respect.” ASSOCIATED PRESS Hanoi, Vietnam - 20 August 2026 16. Various of traffic STORYLINE: Vietnam has charged a man with rape after an American student said she was assaulted while in her bed during a group holiday. Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, 24, said she was raped on July 5 and pressured by the man’s family to accept money and not go to police. She said the police also initially urged her to settle the matter privately. The AP does not usually identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. She did not respond to questions about alleged police pressure to settle the case. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...