BREAKING NEWS: Vietnam Detains Key Activists As Vatican Officials Meet Government

talks with government officials in Hanoi, dissidents told BosNewsLife. The activists were identified as lawyers Le Thi Cong Nhan and Nguyen Van Dai who have been promoting political and religious rights in the Communist country.

"There whereabouts are unknown. But based on our sources, they are probably incarcerated at B14 prison at Kim Giang village [in] Hanoi," said Cong Thanh Do, a prominent political activist and pro-democracy advocate, who is also known as Tran Nam.

"This morning [Tuesday] at 10 AM, around 15 Hanoi police officers entered Lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan’s house to officially announce the arrested order to put her in jail," he told BosNewsLife. "At the same time,  polices also conducted a raid at Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai’s house [in Hanoi] and arrested him as well."

PRIEST DETAINED

He stressed that the two lawyers were in the same situation as Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest who was detained February 18 on charges of disseminating anti-government propaganda.

The reported arrests came as Vatican officials reportedly discussed the case of Father Nguyen Van Ly among other topics with Vietnamese officials.

The monitoring of religious groups and the government’s insistence on approving most church appointments have been a source of tension between the Communist state and the Roman Catholic Church.

Tuesday’s talks take place a month after a visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Pope Benedict XVI as part of historic attempts to improve ties and establish diplomatic relations.

MILLIONS OF CATHOLICS

There are about six million Catholics in Vietnam, which until last year, was on a United States blacklist of countries that repressed religious rights.

Human rights groups have condemned the US for removing Vietnam from its list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern" regarding religious freedom violations.  (With reports from Vietnam).