Sun, Feb. 25, 2007
HANOI, Vietnam – Vietnamese police have accused a prominent dissident Catholic priest of disseminating propaganda intended to undermine the communist government, officials and state media said Monday.
Nguyen Van Ly has been moved from his home in the central city of Hue, where he was under virtual house arrest, and taken to a smaller parish outside the city, said Ngo Hoa, vice chairman of the Thua Thien-Hue provincial government.
Authorities say Ly, a member of the Vietnam Progression Party, was plotting with overseas democracy activists to start a new political party called Lac Hong. Vietnam’s communist party does not tolerate challenges to its single-party rule.
Police have not formally charged Ly and are continuing to investigate.
The actions against Ly come as Vietnam and the Vatican are discussing the possibility of establishing diplomatic ties. In a sign of their warming relations, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited the Pope last month.
Authorities raided Ly’s home on Feb. 18 and took items including hundreds of documents and five laptop computers, Hoa said. They returned on Feb. 24 and moved Ly to the rural parish in Phong Dien district, where he remains under virtual house arrest.
Ly angered Vietnamese authorities when he gave written testimony in 2001 to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urging the United States not to ratify a bilateral trade agreement until the communist government improved its human rights record.
Ly has spent more than a decade in prison for his political activism and is one of the best known members of Vietnam’s small dissident community. Humans groups and western politicians say he has been persecuted for his political beliefs.
The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has monitored Vietnam’s treatment of Ly in the past, but declined to comment Monday.
Vietnamese authorities closely monitor religious organizations, and only officially sanctioned religions, including Catholicism, are allowed to operate. Vietnam, a nation of 84 million, has about 6 million Catholics.