JURIST - Paper Chase: Vietnam rights lawyers arrested after hosting first public training session

[JURIST] Two human rights lawyers in Vietnam [JURIST news archive] were ordered to return to a police station for additional questioning Monday after they were detained over the weekend for hosting a discussion on human rights law. Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan were arrested at Dai's office on Saturday where the training was taking place and were released on Sunday after police spent two days searching their homes and offices. The two held a similar training session for university students last month, which was the first known public human rights [JURIST news archive] training in the communist country.

Pro-democracy groups in Vietnam have increasingly begun to work together, though the Vietnamese government has worked to keep news of the groups out of the press. Last year, the US and Vietnam ended a three-year suspension [JURIST report] on talks regarding human rights and religious freedoms [HRW backgrounder] in the country, which began when the US cancelled the annual Human Rights Dialogue with the Government of Vietnam in 2003 due to a lack of progress on the issues. BBC News has more.

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