Vietnam confirms detention of US citizen

HANOI, Sept 7 (Reuters) A Vietnamese-born US citizen was detained in mid-August, a government spokesman said today as rights groups complained he was arrested after using the Internet to call for alternatives to one-party communist rule.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said the man, Cong Thanh Do, 47, was ''temporarily detained in Ho Chi Minh City for violations of Vietnamese law'' on August 17, but he declined to say on what charges.

''When we receive the outcome of the investigation we will let you know,'' the spokesman said at a regular media briefing.

Do's family in San Jose, California, publicised his detention at the weekend, days after Vietnam released its most prominent cyber-dissident, Pham Hong Son, under a presidential amnesty.

Son served more than four years on a conviction of spying after posting essays and translations on democracy on the Internet.

A US Embassy spokeswoman in Hanoi said today she had no new information on charges against Do, a computer engineer who was born in Vietnam and has lived in the United States since 1982.

''It's for the Vietnamese government to delineate the charges,'' she said.

Do received a visit last Friday from a US consular official in Ho Chi Minh City, the US and Vietnamese officials said.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders activist group, a frequent critic of the Hanoi government, said it believed five so-called cyber-dissidents, including Do, were in custody.

''These men have been punished for using the Internet to publicly express disagreement with the political line of the sole party,'' the group said in a letter sent to diplomats of the United States, France and Finland, which is president of the European Union under its rotation system.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also protested the detention.

Hanoi has been under pressure from Washington and Brussels to improve its human rights record as it prepares to join the World Trade Organisation this year and host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in November.

Do's daughter Bien DoBui said by telephone from California on Monday that her father told the consular official he was a member of the outlawed People's Democratic Party of Vietnam and that he was a peaceful supporter of multi-party democracy and freedom of speech.

REUTERS SP MIR RN1708