Vietnam dissident ends hunger strike

Nov 9, 2009, 8:16 GMT

   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 dpa via telephone.

   'Then I showed him our children's pictures and messages from friends,' she said. 'He was very moved, and he cried. He told me he would live until he could take our kids out again.'

   On Friday, Mai said Hung's weight was down to 30 kilogrammes.

   Hung was one of nine dissidents sentenced to two to six years in prison a month ago for violating an article of Vietnam's legal code that forbids 'spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.'

   The trials elicited protests from foreign countries and international human rights organizations.