HANOI, Sept 24, 1999 (Reuters) - Top Vietnam dissident Nguyen Dan Que said police in southern Ho Chi Minh City had stepped up harassment of him and his family, and that from Saturday he would be isolated from the outside world.
``This morning three policemen came for my daughter. They took her to the local police station and kept her from 9 a.m. until 12:30,'' Que, 57, told Reuters on Friday by mobile telephone. ``It was very tense, they were shouting at her.''
He said police told his daughter, Hoang Da Huong, 39, that a mobile telephone in her name -- which Que used as his last means of outside communication -- would be disconnected from Saturday.
Que, who has spent 20 of the last 23 years in jail for his political beliefs, was freed in an amnesty last year. This year he has mounted a campaign calling for an end in Vietnam to human rights abuses and the Communist Party's monopoly on power.
The authorities responded by cutting his regular telephone and Internet accounts, intercepting all his mail and keeping his home under constant surveillance. Que, a former Nobel Peace Prize nominee, says it is unsafe to try a leave his house.
Last week, police in the city formerly known as Saigon also detained and interrogated a number of Buddhist monks belonging to the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.
Que said that in recent months, his daughter, wife, son-in-law and niece had all been subjected to repeated questioning about his activities.
``I am worried for my family,'' Que said. ``But I also need to have a means of communication to the outside world. I don't know how I can do that now.''
Que has recently issued statements calling for the formation of an independent human rights group to promote democracy and has attacked Communist Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu for exhibiting ``ill-thinking.''
Que has also voiced support for the signing of a landmark Vietnam-U.S. trade pact as he believes this would help erode party control over the Vietnamese people.
That deal, which the two sides approved in principal in July, now appears to be on ice due to divided opinions among Hanoi's ruling elite.
On Wednesday in Helsinki, Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, told his visiting Vietnamese counterpart Phan Van Khai that the EU expected to see better treatment of dissidents in the communist country.
``Human rights, judicial cooperation are key to relations between the EU and Vietnam,'' Lipponen told a news conference.