Police officers from the Ministry of Public Security detained young activist Nguyen Anh Tuan on Friday when he was in a cafeteria in Hanoi.

Police took him to a police station and questioned about his legal writing about the land dispute in Dong Tam commune, Hoai Duc district, Hanoi and the brutal assault by thousands of riot policemen in Hoanh village on January 9 in which police barbarically killed 84-year-old Le Dinh Kinh and arrested around 30 local residents.

Mr. Tuan was released in the late afternoon of the same day.

Mr. Tuan, born in 1990 from the central city of Danang, is a talented young man. He has just completed a master degree in Public Policy at the Vietnam-Japan University of Hanoi National University. He also attended many overseas-based training sessions about campaigning for democracy and human rights. He actively supported victims of the Formosa environmental disaster. He has been illegally detained many times, having a passport confiscated for many months before being returned thanks to pressure from the EU.

After the Dong Tam massacre, Tuan and many individuals as well as independent civil society groups have provided support and legal guidance to Dong Tam villagers, and helped them draft letters to foreign governments and international rights organizations.