Vietnamese Priest arrested for disseminating propaganda

Nguyen Van Ly was arrested by Vietnamese police and moved from his house to a smaller parish over the weekend, according to The Washington Post. Ly is a member of the Viet Nam Progression Party and is accused of working with democracy groups overseas to create a new party, a campaign that ostensibly undermines the single party rule of Vietnam’s communist party. At this time, Ly has not been formally charged by the government, but the investigation is ongoing. His forcible transfer comes less than a week after authorities took computers and documents from his house.

Ly angered the government when he submitted written testimony to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2001. In his testimony he urged the United States not to approve bilateral relations with Viet Nam until the country’s human rights record improved. In total, Ly has spent over a decade of his life imprisoned for his political activism.
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