Hanoi - A jailed Vietnamese dissident who was reportedly near death after a monthlong hunger strike has begun eating, his wife said Monday. Vu Van Hung, a 43-year-old high school teacher, was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation on October 7 for hanging a banner advocating multiparty democracy from a Hanoi overpass in August 2008.
Hung had declared he would not eat until authorities reversed the verdict and ceased placing him in cells with common criminals.
Hung's wife, Ly Thi Tuyet Mai, said a prison guard captain told her Saturday that Hung had begun drinking soup.
"On Friday, when I visited him, he told me he would keep fasting for 100 days, but I told him he would die," Mai told the German Press Agency
