Vietnam releases Internet democrats
HANOI - Vietnam's communist government has released three young people arrested last year for anonymous comments made in an internet voice-chat forum, and one of them vowed Wednesday he would continue to push for democratic reform.
Truong Quoc Huy, 25, said one of his first acts on being released last month was to join the new "8406 Group" of government critics formed in April this year.
"I will continue to criticize the government on their wrong-doings," Huy said by telephone, adding that his arrest last year along with his brother and their friend only made him "more courageous."
The case, believed to be Vietnam's first arrests involving Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), had become a rallying cry for international free-speech groups that decry Vietnam's persecution of critics of the ruling Communist Party.
Huy said that under questioning, it became apparent that Vietnamese internal security police had been monitoring the voice chat forum PalTalk.
"Security police recorded our talk on PalTalk and checked with contacts who happened to know who I was," Huy said, adding that police knew both his PalTalk alias and his personal e-mail identity.
He added that he had never advocated violent overthrow of Vietnam's government. "I only spoke out my thoughts and opinions about corruption, the lack of human rights and free speech."
Vietnam's government had never acknowledged it was detaining Huy, his brother Truong Quoc Tuan, 28, and Tuan's fiancée Pham Anh Dao, a legal US resident also known as Lisa Pham.
Nor would a government spokesman immediately confirm their release, which Huy said was on July 7.
The three were seized in an October 19, 2005 in a police raid on the home of the Truong brothers, according to Reporters Without Borders, an international free-speech advocacy group.
They were held pending investigation of charges of plotting to overthrow Vietnam's government, but released before being brought to trial. Vietnam can hold suspects for up to 16 months in jail before any formal indictments.
Huy said the three were isolated from other prisoners and questioned about their speeches on PalTalk, an internet voice-chat service that has a forum on democracy run by Vietnamese exiles living in Canada.
After their release, Huy said, officials from the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City helped Lisa Pham return to the US. Officials at the consulate would not confirm or deny the report.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - August 16, 2006.
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