Viet Nam releases activist

Le Quoc Quan, a Vietnamese lawyer and activist, was released from prison prior to President Nguyen Minh Triet’s visit to the U.S., The Associated Press reported on June 16. Quan had been arrested with several other democracy activists as part of a government crackdown on dissidents.

Quan was doing research on civil society in democratizing countries when he was incarcerated by Vietnamese authorities in early March.

Prior to Triet’s trip, a Vietnamese official had said that three dissidents would be released soon, but did not give specific names. As previously covered, Nguyen Vu Binh was released on June 9 as the first of the three dissidents. Binh had been detained for five years and was well known as one of Viet Nam’s first “cyber dissidents.”

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