Fr. Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly (continued)

The Resistance

The uncertainty on the fate of Fr. Nguyen Van Ly ever deepened.  The heavy cope of silence swooped down on him since his arrest in the morning of May 17 had not been lifted.  No official information on his fate had been known. The news from his entourage was only fragmentary and often uncertain. His incarceration at the prison of Phu Thua in Hue was little known.  Only fragmentary pieces of news were heard; his hunger strike, his transport to the hospital in Don Mang Ca where authorities tried in vain to feed him, then forcibly had him fed on May 20, and finally brought him back to the prison on May 27.

In fact, the priest had in mind to resist the authorities’ unlawful arrest with firm determination by hunger. In his declaration diffused on the internet during his campaign for religious freedom that started in November 2000, he already announced that if he was arrested, he would go on a hunger strike until death. He said: “I will not eat, I will not drink, I will not speak, I will not write on the order of the police.” According to the news from the Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam diffused on May 21, 2001 and confirmed by the organization itself the following day, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly kept his promise. He had complete fasting immediately after the first hours of his incarceration in the prison of Phu Thua in Hue on May 17. Being fainted in his cell, he was brought to be treated in emergency in a hospital in Don Mang Ca located in the interior of the old Imperial City of Hue. This hospital is particularly reserved for the personnel of the police. When the nurses tried to inject by perfusion a serum composed of dextrose and water, the priest resisted feverishly. According to sources, the priest was brought from the hospital back to the prison of Phu Thua where he had been incarcerated, hee still continued his hunger strike, although he might have consented to drink some water.

Fr.’ Nguyen Van Ly was strictly isolated from the outside world. No words about him were heard. On June 1, the sister of the imprisoned priest, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hieu came to the prison of Phu Thua with a pack of food for her brother. After a long wait, the receipt of the pack of food was done with the signature of her brother on it. She accepted “the favor “with a poignant hear. While waiting, she noticed the moving of a pedicel in the prison quarters. She had doubts that Fr. Nguyen Van Ly was being moved to somewhere else. Her doubts were confirmed later by sources that affirmed that the priest had been transferred to the premises of the police of Hue on Tran Cao Van Street. Still, other sources said that he might have been transported out of the city. A notable of the parish of An Truyen came to the police office to receive the properties belonging to the priest that had been confiscated the day of his arrest. However, the sum of 2,000 dollars taken off by the policemen on May 17 was not recuperated. This sum of money was destined to buy an electric generator for the parish. No mention about the priest was made, and explanation about the money was not given. Intimidation followed. The police continued to conduct interrogations of numerous parishioners of the Christendom of Nguyet Bieu and the parish of An Truyen. They all suffered maltreatment. One of these victims was a youth of 19 years old, Hoang Trong Dung, the most competent assistant to Fr. Nguyen Van Ly. The authorities kept silent on the fate of Fr. Nguyen Van Ly while inflicting reprisals of fear on his parishioners as well as certain members of his family persisted.

Later on, the police arrested three of the nephews and nieces of Fr. Nguyen Van Ly. On June 19, one of his nieces, Nguyen Thi Hoa, the mother of the family and an extremely poor widower, was interrogated for having kept in her house the documents belonging Fr. Nguyen Van Ly. The following day, his nephew, Nguyen Van Cung, was arrested in secret. The same day, another nephew, Nguyen Van Dung, was summoned to the police and never returned home, and members of his family had not known his whereabouts the days that followed. 

The Trials

On October 19, 2001, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly was brought to stand trial before the court of justice in Hue. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for two crimes, to sabotage national unity and to oppose the decision of house arrest of the regime. The trial lasted two hours and conducted without a defense lawyer. The priest was then incarcerated at Phu Thua prison in Hue. On July 16, 2003, the sentence was commuted to 10 years in prison, probably due to international pressure. The niece and two nephews of the priest, who were arrested and incarcerated in June 2001 for having received money and anti-government materials from foreign countries to distort  the state p's religious policy. However, it was not until May 2003 that they were brought to stand trial before the justice court. Nguyen Thi Hoa, 44, Nguyen Vu Viet, 27, and Nguyen Truc Cuong, 36 were given 3 to 5 years in prison on charges of abuse of freedom and  creation of social disorder.   

On June 16, 2004, Hanoi, again, commuted Fr. Nguyen Van Ly’s prison term to 5 years in prison and 5 years under house surveillance. The decision of June 12 specified the reason for the commutation. The priest had proven good spirit in reeducation and obeyed the rules and regulations of the prison. This was the second time his sentence term was commuted. The first time, in July, 2003, his prison term had been commuted from 15 years in prison to 10 years in prison and 5 years under house surveillance. On the Lunar New Year’s Day of at Dau (February 2, 2005), together with 8,200 prisoners, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly was granted amnesty. Other political prisoners were rendered freedom: They were Nguyen Dan Que, the Venerable Thich Thiem Minh of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, Truong Van Duc of Hoa Hao Buddhism, and Nguyen Dinh Huy.

Fulfillment of Commitments

After his release from prison, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly continued to carry on his struggle for religious freedom. In November 2005, together with three other Catholic priests, Fr. Chan Tin, Fr. Nguyen Huu Giai, and Fr. Phan Van Loi he disseminated an open letter to express compassion and sympathy with other religious faiths-- mostly, the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, Hoa Hao Buddhism, and the Evangelical Christian Churches as regards the persecution they ever suffer under the totalitarian regime. According to him, the situation of religions in Vietnam is increasingly complex as the communist state maintains not a two-sponged policy but a multi-faced one.  With  the two-faced main policy, it carries out persecution against and sows division among the independent Churches in the isolate and distant regions, They meet with insurmountable difficulties in the propagation of faith and   performances of religious services and activities. The Churches that operate openly in big cities were bound by vile rules and regulations.  Many foreign reporters still have superficial knowledge about the situation of religion in Vietnam. Advocates and fighters for rights should do more to bring into light repressive measures and atrocious persecution committed by the totalitarian regime.     

 April 2006, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly, together with a number of rights activists, established the Bloc 8406, advocating freedom, democracy, and human rights for Vietnam and published an online journal called Free Speech. In September of the same year he helped establish the Vietnam Progressive Party. In February 2007, the police of Thua Thien - Hue raided the offices of Hue Archdiocese and arrested the priest. A member of the Bloc 8406, Fr. Nguyen Van Ly was sentenced to 8 years in prison on charge of trying to campaigning for a boycott of the upcoming general elections. During the trial, he was silenced by a police officer who stopped his mouth with his hand, which act became a true picture of absence of free expression in Vietnam. On November 17, 2009, he suffered a stroke and was transferred from prison to a police hospital for medical treatment. On March 15, 2010, he was freed on "temporary suspension."  On July 25, 2011, the authorities arrested the ailing priest and brought him back to prison to complete the sentence that had been suspended due to poor health. Fr. Nguyen Van Ly was released from prison ahead of his prison term a few days before President Obama’s visit to Vietnam in May 2016. Authorities told him that this is an expression of favor of the State, but the prisoner of conscience believed that this is “a gift” the Communist state presented to the President the United States. Rights advocates conceded that external pressure could have some impact, but there was little hope for change. Hanoi might compromise on matters of economy but not on political issues.

The archbishop selected by Pope Francis as the new cardinal of Vietnam 's Roman Catholic Church Nguyen Van Nhon, on May 1, 2015, said that the Catholic Church "still has a lot to do" for its 6 million followers The Communist administration claims to respect religious freedom, but religious activities remain under State control. They vary, depending on the locality and times. Some issues may arise in certain times, and may not at others. There may be problems in one place and not in others, though.