HANOI - Vietnam's communist authorities have placed a prominent Buddhist dissident under house arrest for two years, a Buddhist support group said on Saturday.
Penelope Faulkner of the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau told Reuters Thich Quang Do had phoned her to say the detention order confining him to his pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City was effective from May 31.
Last month Do, 73, deputy head of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, set the scene for a showdown with the authorities over religious freedom by vowing to defy a ban on visiting his group's detained patriarch Thich Huyen Quang on June 7.
The report of Do's detention comes just two days before a historic trade agreement between the United States and Vietnam was expected to go to the U.S. Congress for ratification. Vietnam's religious rights record has been cited as a factor that could complicate ratification.
Officials of the Vietnamese government could not immediately be reached for comment.
07:13 06-02-01
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