Father
Nguyen Van Ly was granted an early release from prison on 20 May, in what media
have reported as a goodwill gesture ahead of US President Barack Obama’s three-day
visit to the country, which started on 23 May.
However,
it has been reported that a number of human rights activists were detained this
week, in apparent attempts to prevent them from meeting the US delegation. Most
have since been released.
Father
Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a 65 year-old Catholic priest and prominent human rights
activist, has been campaigning for religious freedom, democracy and free media
reporting since the 1970s and is a prominent supporter of the Vietnamese
democracy movement, Bloc 8406. His outspoken work has resulted in him spending
more than 15 years in prison.
In
March 2007, Father Ly was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for "disseminating slanderous and libellous
information" against the State. He was rearrested by the
Vietnamese authorities in July 2011, ending one year and four months of
temporary medical parole. He is partially paralysed as a result of suffering
several strokes and having a brain tumour. In September 2010, the United
Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for Father Ly's immediate and unconditional release, saying that he had been arbitrarily and illegally detained
and denied access to legal counsel by the Vietnamese authorities.
CSW’s
Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas said, “While CSW welcomes the release of Father
Ly from prison, we remain concerned about Vietnam’s human rights record and
mistreatment of human rights defenders such as Tran Thi Hong
and lawyer Nguyen
Van Dai. We urge President Obama to raise their cases and ongoing human
rights concerns, including violations of the right to freedom of religion or
belief, with the government of Vietnam during his visit."