Police in southern Vietnam arrested an activist lawyer who recently sued the Vietnamese prime minister, accusing the lawyer of spreading propaganda against the state and for alleged links to prostitution, his wife and uncle said yesterday.
Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, was taken into custody in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, accused of violating Article 88 of the Penal Code, said his wife Nguyen Thi Duong Ha, who runs a law firm in Hanoi.
Vu could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
“According to the police, Vu is suspected of having links with prostitution,” the uncle said.
Police raided Vu’s hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City and confiscated his laptop computer and cellphone, his uncle Cu Huy Chu said. They later searched Vu’s house in Hanoi and seized his desktop computer, Chu said.
Vu, who obtained a doctorate in law in France, is the son of Cu Huy Can, a famous poet and a former minister of agriculture in a government formed after revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France in 1945.
He is also a nephew of Xuan Dieu, one of Vietnam’s most renowned poets.
Last year, Vu irked authorities by suing Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for allegedly violating laws on environmental protection, national security and cultural heritage by approving Chinese-built bauxite mining projects in the Central Highlands.
Court officials dismissed the lawsuit, saying they don’t have the authority to try the prime minister.
Last month, he again sued the prime minister over a decree that banned groups from filing petitions and complaints with the government, saying it violated a constitutional guarantee of the right to “gather, form groups and protest in conformity with the law.”
On the sidelines of a regional summit in Hanoi last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country was concerned about the arrest and conviction of people for peaceful dissent, attacks on religious groups and curbs on Internet freedom.
Over the past month, authorities have arrested three bloggers in an apparent crackdown on dissent ahead of a five-year Communist Party Congress scheduled in January.
A foreign diplomat said”there’s a heightened sensitivity to dissent” in Vietnam, partly because of the Communist Party Congress in January, when key leadership positions will be determined.
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