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Vietnam detains two anti-China activists ahead of torch relay

AFP - Tuesday, April 29

HANOI (AFP) - - Vietnamese police detained at least two anti-China activists in the capital Hanoi on Tuesday as southern Ho Chi Minh City tightened security, hoping to host a trouble-free Olympic torch relay.

Two young men in Hanoi unfurled a black banner reading "Beijing 2008" and showing an image of the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs, in a brief protest outside a popular market shortly after 9:00 am local time (0200 GMT).

The image was originally designed by media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans frontieres - RSF), but a spokesperson for the Paris-based group said the demonstrators were not their representatives.

Scores of uniformed and undercover police immediately surrounded and detained the activists, cleared the area with loudhailers and told foreign media to leave the Dong Xuan market area in the city's Old Qarter.

Police could also be seen detaining at least one other woman.

Larger peaceful rallies announced for Tuesday morning on activist weblogs appeared to have been pre-empted in Hanoi by a heavy security presence.

A police officer who later answered the phone at the local ward station told AFP he knew nothing about the incident, or about unconfirmed reports by a US-based pro-democracy group of the detentions of scores of other activists.

The Beijing Olympic flame arrived in Ho Chi Minh City late Monday from North Korea, ahead of a relay set to start under tight security at 6:30 pm along a secret route of 10 to 13 kilometres (six to eight miles).

After its stop in Vietnam, the Olympic torch will head to the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau and then the Chinese mainland.

Pro-Tibet rallies have so far dogged the relay in cities including London, Paris and Canberra, but Vietnam's mostly young and nationalist activists are driven by the country's own long-simmering dispute with its northern neighbour.

Both Beijing and Hanoi are among claimants to the Spratly and Paracel island chains in the South China Sea, in a dispute that late last year triggered a series of street rallies rarely seen in Vietnam, a one-party state.

The communist leaders of Vietnam and China routinely stress their comradely ties, and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week promised China's visiting Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi an incident-free torch relay.

The premier has warned "hostile forces" would seek to disrupt the event, and several weblog activists have been detained or expelled over the past week.

In Ho Chi Minh City, hundreds of uniformed and plain-clothes police were stationed downtown Tuesday, and street vendors usually seen near the Opera House, where the relay was set to start, had apparently been told to leave.

In both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, scores of riot police were also deployed outside Chinese diplomatic missions, where last December's rallies started.

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