Friday, February 1, 2008
HANOI — A court in communist Vietnam freed a writer and pro-democracy activist from prison Thursday, partially on medical grounds due to tuberculosis, a judicial source said citing the ruling.
Novelist and journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was sentenced by the Hanoi People’s Court to the nine months and 10 days she had already spent in detention since her arrest last April.
“Her release is based on the fact that she has tuberculosis and she promised not to repeat the offense,” the judicial source told AFP.
Thuy, who was born in 1960, was arrested for spreading propaganda against the one-party state but was convicted and sentenced for the lesser offense of disturbing the peace, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A spokesperson for the US-based Viet Tan pro democracy group told AFP that Thuy had contracted tuberculosis before her arrest but, according to sources close to her, “she was not given proper treatment during her time in jail.”
Tuberculosis, a bacterial disease spread through coughing and sneezing, usually attacks the lungs but can also spread to the kidney, spine and brain, and has a high mortality rate if left untreated.
“The release was ultimately because of pressure from the Vietnamese overseas and international community. Human rights groups and the U.S. government have repeatedly raised her case,” said the Viet Tan spokesperson.