Hanoi - Prominent Vietnamese dissident Hoang Minh Chinh, a former top ideologist in the Communist Party who became disillusioned with the regime and called for democracy, has died at age 85, a police source said Friday. Chinh died at his home in Hanoi on Thursday, the first day of the Tet lunar new year in Vietnam, according to a member of the Public Security police, which has monitored the dissident's movements in recent years.
The long-time activist has suffered from pancreatic cancer for years.
Chinh joined the communist revolution in Vietnam in 1937, at the age of just 15, and rose quickly in the ranks of the party, holding posts of education minister and also director of the Marxist Institute of Philosophy.
However, he began to criticize Communist Party leadership in the 1960s and was twice jailed for counter-revolutionary activities.
In his later years, Chinh continued fighting for an end to one-party rule, organizing a younger generation of dissidents, and was active in the umbrella pro-democracy group Bloc 8406.
Chinh was allowed to travel to the United States to receive medical treatment in 2005. While there, he testified to the US Congress on Vietnam's repression of pro-democracy activists.
On his return, the then-83-year-old was denounced in state-run media. He said that in December 2005, a mob of people surrounded him and his wife shouting "traitor" and throwing tomatoes and water bottles at him, his wife and children.
Chinh complained to the secretary-general of the Communist Party over the incident, but got no reply.
Vietnam's communist government has liberalized its economy in the past 20 years, but continues to repress opposition to one-party rule.
Last year, nearly a dozen dissidents were jailed, most for breaking a law forbidding "propaganda against the Socialist Republic."
