Saturday June 28, 11:55 AM
By Christina Toh-Pantin
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has freed one of its most prominent dissidents two months before the Buddhist monk's two-year detention was due to end.
Vietnam News daily reported on Saturday that a court in southern Ho Chi Minh City ordered Thich Quang Do, 74, to be freed from house arrest.
Do is deputy leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and the court's release order on Friday is seen as a possible concession to the group by the communist government.
A man answering the telephone at the pagoda where Do has been held confirmed he has been freed. Do was not immediately available for comment.
He was put under house arrest in June 2001 after lobbying for democratic change. The detention was due to end in September 2003 but Hanoi had indicated it might lift the sentence for good behaviour.
The newspaper report said the early release was based on "the (communist) Party and State's humanitarian policies that upheld great national unity".
The early release comes after a historic meeting in April between the patriarch of the Buddhist group, Thich Huyen Quang, 86, and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. Quang was also permitted to receive visits from American and European Union envoys.
Quang has been under effective house arrest since 1982 but has been allowed to travel, including a trip to Hanoi earlier this year for surgery.
But Do had been off limits, and an EU delegation was denied permission to see him last September.
Hanoi insists the followers of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam come under a state-sanctioned Buddhist church.
Diplomats in Hanoi who have been tracking the case closely expressed surprise.
"No one in the diplomatic community knew this was coming up," said an envoy from an Asian country.
A Western diplomat said, "It's welcome but regrettable he was under this arbitrary detention order."
He added, "This may be part of an effort to regain some good publicity after Pham Hong Son," referring to the 13-year prison sentence handed out on June 18 to a Vietnamese doctor accused of publishing anti-government texts on the Internet.
State-controlled media briefly reported Do's release, with the Communist Party's mouthpiece Nhan Dan (People) daily saying court officials went to Do's pagoda on Friday to hand him the decision.
Vietnam insists its citizens enjoy freedom of religion. It allows six approved religions to operate with all others deemed illegal and subject to punishment.