Activists join funeral of elder Vietnamese dissident

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese political activists spanning the generations on Saturday bade farewell to onetime senior Communist Party member turned dissident Hoang Minh Chinh, who died in his late 80s earlier this month.

Hundreds of people, many wearing white headbands of mourning, attended the funeral in Hanoi of the leader of the outlawed Democratic Party of Vietnam and founder member of "Bloc 8406", a diverse group of mainly Internet activists named for the date it was established in April 2006.

Several younger political activists, including some who in recent years have been jailed for opposing one-party rule, were among relatives and older friends who paid respects to Chinh. He died on February 7 after suffering from prostate cancer.

"He dedicated all his life to the struggle for democracy and liberty," activist Pham Hong Son, who was released in August 2006, told Reuters at the funeral. "I am of the younger generation and I wish to follow his legacy."

Son was arrested in 2002 and then tried after posting a translation of a U.S. State Department article "What is Democracy?" onto the Internet. He still lives under police surveillance and some restrictions.

Plainclothes police watched and filmed mourners at Saturday's funeral.

The Southeast Asian country has opened its economy to the world and reduced poverty through high economic growth, but it does not tolerate proponents of a multi-party system.

About 40 activists have been arrested in the past year, according to international human rights groups and Western diplomats. Some have been put on trial and sentenced to between three years and eight years in prison for "spreading propaganda against the state", a criminal offence in Vietnam.

A government spokesman says the defendants, who include lawyers, businessmen and union organizers, were not tried for their political beliefs, only for breaking Vietnam's laws.

MARXIST-LENINIST

Chinh's associates say he became a member of the Communist Party after the 1945 revolution in northern Vietnam, trained in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and was appointed director of the Marxist-Leninist Institute in Hanoi in 1960.

Seven years later he was removed and imprisoned for four years after writing an essay critical of the ruling party.

He was imprisoned at least twice more in the 1980s and 90s. In 2005, he was allowed to go to the United States for medical treatment, but faced abuse on his return after criticizing the Hanoi government while in America, according to rights groups.

Chinh's casket was accompanied to a cremation ceremony by yellow-robed monks of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, to which Chinh converted in his final days.

"According to his wishes, he became a Buddhist with a Buddhist name," monk Thich Khong Tanh said.

Several faiths are practiced in Vietnam under government supervision. The UBCV rejects state supervision of religion.