In remarks released by the official Vietnam News Agency the government said "amnesty was granted" to 39-year-old Nguyen Vu Binh by Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet. Analysts said the timing of the release seems deliberate as the president is due to visit Washington later this month.
Binh "thanked the Nam Ha prison management for their care while he was serving his sentence there," state media said. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem told reporters during a visit to the United States in March that the government could free Binh, who human rights groups and supporters say has been in poor health.
The US State Department removed Vietnam from its list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ regarding religious rights violations, a move criticized by activists following the recent arrest of Christian and other pro-democracy dissidents.
COMMUNIST JOURNAL
Nguyen Vu Binh was a reporter with Tap Chi Cong San, the Communist Journal. He was dismissed and jailed in 2003 for "spying" against the state because of links with overseas "reactionary" groups and prominent dissidents such as Vietnamese physician and publicist Dr Pham Hong Son, who was arrested by police in 2002 after translating into Vietnamese and publishing texts about western democracy.
Binh was originally arrested in September 2002 for writing an online article criticizing a border agreement between Vietnam and China. He reportedly also planned to create an alternative political party, which is illegal in Vietnam as the Communist Party is the country’s only legalized political grouping.
Binh was high on a list of dissidents that American and European diplomats have been pressing to have released, however eight other activists have recently been convicted of conducting "propaganda against the state" and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
OTHERS SENTENCED
His release comes after the sentencing of other dissidents, including Catholic priest Catholic Priest Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly and four associates who were found guilty of "conducting propaganda" against the state.
The priest, on March 30, was sentenced to eight years in prison during dramatic proceedings in which the church leader openly condemned the Vietnamese Communist leadership.
The 60-year-old Ly, who spent a total of 14 years in prison since 1983 on charges of acting against the Communist state, upset officials by resuming his political activities after he was freed from jail in a 2005 amnesty, and placed under house arrest, observers said.
Other Christian and religious leaders as well as lawyers, trade unionists, and Internet dissidents with links to emerging pro-democracy groups have also been targeted with "many" facing trial, human rights group Amnesty International has said. (With BosNewsLife Monitoring and reports from Vietnam).
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