Vietnam frees popular blogger on condition she leave for US

Vietnam has freed a well-known blogger after two years in prison on the condition that she leave for the United States.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom," was arrested in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of defaming the Communist government.

The conviction of the popular blogger, who wrote about human rights and industrial pollution, drew criticism from some Western governments and international human rights groups.

Friends of the 39-year-old blogger said she was on her way to the US with her mother and two young children.

"After numerous efforts, the family of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was reunited in a free country," her friend Nguyen Tin wrote on his Facebook page. "Congratulations to her small family."
Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East and South East Asia, said in a statement, "While Mother Mushroom is no longer imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile and there are over one hundred people languishing in jail because they peacefully spoke their mind in public, on blogs or on Facebook."