Balanced News: Public Security Ministry orders detention of controversial academic

The Ministry of Public Security has ordered the detention of the former director of the Southeast and North Asia Institute of Technology Research and Development, Nguyen Son Lo, following six months of house arrest. Lo is accused of continuing to commit crimes, including abuse of freedom and democracy. His close friend, Nguyen Khac Mai, director of the Hanoi-based Minh Triet Cultural Research Center, told RFA last year the Communist Party advised him not to send his books to provincial party secretaries or National Assembly deputies but send them internally to groups such as the Secretariat and the Politburo of the party’s Central Committee. The Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations said it had decided to suspend the operations of the institute and take steps to abolish it, saying its establishment and operations violated regulations.