Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities arrested two pro-democracy campaigners on suspicion of attempting to overthrow the communist government, state media reported Tuesday. The online newspaper VNexpress said police arrested Nguyen Tien Trung, 26, deputy head of the Vietnam Democratic Party, in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday. The dissident Tran Kim Anh, 60, was arrested in the northern province of Thai Binh on Monday, the Vietnam News Agency reported.
Police accused Trung of setting up the Movement of Democratic Youth that aimed to collude with anti-government forces at home and overseas to bring about a "change of political regime" in Vietnam. He was discharged from the army fir subordination a day before he was arrested, the newspaper reported.
Police said Trung wrote blogs, distributed several documents, ran the "Democracy Youth Forum" on the internet and made speeches at meetings to incite people to oppose the government.
He was also accused of inciting university students to protest China's move to set up an administrative district for the disputed Spratlys and Paracel islands in the South China Sea in December 2007.
Tran Kim Anh, a member of the pro-democracy grouping Bloc 8406 and general secretary of the Vietnam Democratic Party, was arrested on Monday on a charge of "acting to undermine the State, violating Article 88 of Vietnam's Criminal Code."
Anh was accused of working with exile groups in the United States, including the Vietnam Reform Party (Viet Tan), which the communist country considers a terrorist organization.
