[huridocs-tech] Viet Nam: Cyber dissident released from prison into house arrest

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE 
AI Index: ASA 41/006/2006 
30 August 2006 

Prisoner of conscience Dr Pham Hong Son was today released from jail
as part of an amnesty to mark Vietnam's National Day on 2 September.
He will remain under house arrest for up to three years. 

"While it is good news for Dr Pham Hong Sen to be released from jail,
he now faces three years under house arrest and we still consider him
a prisoner of conscience," said Janice Beanland, South East Asia
Campaigner at Amnesty International. 

"The Vietnamese government has been cracking down on cyber dissidents
for the last four years, detaining people who email or post on the
internet material that is critical of the government. There are many
others still detained and the government continues to silence critics
in this way."

On 18 August 25-year-old Truong Quoc Huy was arrested by plain
clothes police as he was connecting to a democracy chat room in an
internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh City. He had only been out of
incommunicado detention for six weeks, having previously been
arrested last October for participating in an internet chat room.
Another cyber dissident, Nguyen Vu Binh, is still serving a
seven-year sentence for passing information through the internet to
overseas Vietnamese groups. 

"We urge the government to release Dr Pham Hong Son from house arrest
and to free all those imprisoned simply for expressing their peaceful
opinions," said Janice Beanland. 

Dr Pham Hong Son, a businessman and qualified medical doctor, was
sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment and three years house arrest on
charges of "spying", having been arrested in March 2002. Shortly
before his arrest, he had translated into Vietnamese an article from
the United States embassy website about democracy. In an
unprecedented development in August 2003 his sentence was reduced to
five years' imprisonment, possibly because of the intense
international pressure about his case. 

Amnesty International's international campaign against internet
repression can be found at http://irrepressible.info. 





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