'austraLasia' #479
Note - the source is CWN - usually reliable, but we might find out mroe from our own sources in due course. JBF
VIETNAM FREEDOM FIGHTER PRIEST ARRESTED YET AGAIN
HANOI, May 17, 01 (CWNews.com/Fides/EDA) - Father Thaddeus
Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest who in 2000 started a
campaign for religious freedom in Vietnam, was arrested
this morning in An Truyen parish church, in Hue
archdiocese, central Vietnam.
Father Van Ly, a Salesian, was preparing to say Mass when,
according to EDA Eglise d'Asie news agency, 600 security
agents surrounded the church. Some of the faithful, already
gathered for Mass, who tried to defend the priest were
beaten and threatened and Father Van Ly was taken away in a
police van. The news was confirmed in a statement by Dang
Cong Dieu, chairman of the People's Committee in Phy An
village where the church is located.
In February, Father Van Ly traveled to the United States to
urge Congress to delay ratification of a bilateral trade
agreement because of serious violations of human rights,
religious freedom in particular, in Vietnam. Following
this, the provincial government placed him under
administrative detention and barred him from leaving his
commune. Later the government also banned him from
religious activity.
But the priest, the chairman of the Peoples' Committee
continued, "defied the order and continued to slander the
Party and government policies of religious freedom."
EDA reports that the vicar general of Hue archdiocese said
government officials had pressured the archbishop to
interdict the priest from his religious duties, but the
archbishop declined to do so.
In March, the Vietnamese military daily newspaper Quan Doi
Nhan labeled the priest a "traitor of the fatherland." In
his fight for religious freedom for his people, Father Van
Ly has spent 10 years in prison between 1970 and 1990 and
since his release in 1992 he is kept under strict police
surveillance.
HANOI, May 17, 01 (CWNews.com/Fides/EDA) - Father Thaddeus
Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest who in 2000 started a
campaign for religious freedom in Vietnam, was arrested
this morning in An Truyen parish church, in Hue
archdiocese, central Vietnam.
Father Van Ly, a Salesian, was preparing to say Mass when,
according to EDA Eglise d'Asie news agency, 600 security
agents surrounded the church. Some of the faithful, already
gathered for Mass, who tried to defend the priest were
beaten and threatened and Father Van Ly was taken away in a
police van. The news was confirmed in a statement by Dang
Cong Dieu, chairman of the People's Committee in Phy An
village where the church is located.
In February, Father Van Ly traveled to the United States to
urge Congress to delay ratification of a bilateral trade
agreement because of serious violations of human rights,
religious freedom in particular, in Vietnam. Following
this, the provincial government placed him under
administrative detention and barred him from leaving his
commune. Later the government also banned him from
religious activity.
But the priest, the chairman of the Peoples' Committee
continued, "defied the order and continued to slander the
Party and government policies of religious freedom."
EDA reports that the vicar general of Hue archdiocese said
government officials had pressured the archbishop to
interdict the priest from his religious duties, but the
archbishop declined to do so.
In March, the Vietnamese military daily newspaper Quan Doi
Nhan labeled the priest a "traitor of the fatherland." In
his fight for religious freedom for his people, Father Van
Ly has spent 10 years in prison between 1970 and 1990 and
since his release in 1992 he is kept under strict police
surveillance.
