March 24, 2011
Hanoi – The Vietnamese government on Thursday said it had released the last two of three US citizens arrested on March 14 for joining a farmers’ demonstration over land rights.
’According to information I have received, authorities have released all of them,’ said Nguyen Phuong Nga, the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s spokeswoman. ’The last person will be deported late today,’ she said at the ministry’s regular Thursday press briefing.
Jennifer Truong, 44, Nguyen Ly Trong, 60, and Nguyen Quang Khanh, 57, are all members of the banned pro-democracy party Viet Tan, and also US passport holders.
They were arrested on March 14 in Ho Chi Minh City for joining a peaceful demonstration of farmers whose land was requisitioned by the government, Viet Tan’s spokeswoman Duy Hoang told the German Press Agency dpa.
Truong was released late Thursday while Trong and Khanh were released on Monday and Wednesday, respectively. An earlier Viet Tan statement had said Khanh was not released until Thursday.
The ministry’s spokeswoman said she was not able to answer questions regarding the detention of Pham Minh Hoang, a former maths professor who was arrested on August 13 on charges of anti-government activities and of being a Viet Tan member.
Hoang, 55 and holder of a French passport, was shortlisted earlier this year for the Netizen Prize, an award for online freedom of press by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, to the authorities’ irritation.
Although peaceful protests against the government are illegal in Vietnam, dozens of demonstrations have taken place across the country in the last five years, mostly relating to land disputes between the government and farmers or against the Chinese-backed bauxite mines in the Central Highlands.
Vietnamese authorities consider Viet Tan a terrorist organization, but the party says it engages in non-violent activism.
