Vietnamese
dissident detained for visiting friend, wife says
Deutsche
Presse Agentur
Published: Monday September 18, 2006
Hanoi- Newly
released Vietnamese dissident Pham Hong Son was seized by police and beaten
after violating his house arrest order and visiting another pro-democracy
advocate, Son's wife said Tuesday. Public security police in Hanoi would not to
comment on the incident, which Son's wife, Thuy Ha, said happened Monday
afternoon.
Son, 37, Vietnam's first "cyber-dissident" who was jailed after criticizing the
communist government in his online writings, was released last month in a
general amnesty after four years in prison on an espionage conviction.
On Monday, Son went to visit Hoang Minh Chinh, an 84-year-old outspoken critic
of the Communist Party who has been jailed twice by authorities.
As Son left, a group of plainclothes Public Security police seized him, choking
his neck and hitting him. They took him to Hanoi's Phan Chu Trinh police
station, where he was held for nine hours, Ha said.
"This incident has shown that our family's security is not p rotected but
threatened," Ha said.
An official at the Ministry of Public Security's A-42 division, the
anti-terrorism and espionage unit that Ha said was responsible for the arrest,
refused to comment when contacted by telephone.