Aid to the Church in Need: Vietnam: "Give us back our parish priest!"

Vietnam: "Give us back our parish priest!"

Posted by Information report on 24/1/2003, 11:23 am
Message modified by board administrator 23/1/2003, 8:36 pm

"Give us back our parish priest!"
For a quarter of a century Father Tadeo Nguyen Van Ly has been engaged in a non-violent campaign for religious liberty in Vietnam.
Today he sits in the prison camp of Ba Sao in North Vietnam - in a prison cell of around 120 sq ft in area. He is completely isolated from the rest of the prison, in a separate house. Most of the time he sees only his warders and the people who bring him his food. No one is allowed to speak to him and his guards are constantly changed in order to prevent him from winning their sympathy. Father Ly is allowed neither pen, nor paper, nor any books. Family members are allowed a 15-minute visit once every four months - after a long and difficult journey from South Vietnam, and only then if they have registered their names in advance. The moped taxi drivers who transport these registered visitors to see Father Ly are subjected to various threats. Once a month he is allowed to write to his family, but in practice his sisters and other relatives usually wait in vain to receive them.
Father Ly was sentenced on 19 October 2001 to 15 years imprisonment, to be followed by a further five years of "house arrest". And according to the newspaper Nhan Dan, a mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party in Vietnam, the "traitior" Ly can count himself lucky to have received such a "light" sentence!
So what was the crime that Father Ly committed? The story of his clash with the ruling powers goes back almost as far as 1975, the year when the Vietnam war ended and Tadeo Nguyen Van Ly was ordained a priest in the diocese of Hue in central Vietnam. Just two years later this young priest was forced to spend four months behind bars for having distributed two sermons by his bishop in which the latter had protested against the oppression of religion in Vietnam. Following this imprisonment Father Ly was banished to a remote region of the country. But shortly after having served out this sentence this committed priest again came to the attention of the authorities, for in 1982 he led a - then forbidden - pilgrimage to the main shrine of the Vietnamese Catholics, in the village of La Vang where in 1978 the Virgin Mary had appeared as "Our Lady of La Vang". With a detachment of 200 men, the police moved in to arrest him.
"Religious liberty or death"
Not until he had served ten years imprisonment was Father Ly released again, and then only to be banished to the small parish of Nguyet Bieu. He was forbidden to engage in any kind of pastoral activity, or even to celebrate Holy Mass. But, undeterred, he continued to look after his flock. He build up a social network for the support of the poor and the elderly and offered computer courses for young people. The room used for this was built with the help of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. He made no attempt to obtain the various permits prescribed for every kind of Church activity in Vietnam. Indeed, in December 2000 he wrote to the Vietnamese bishops' conference: "Please do not apply for any more permits for activities that the Church by her very nature has a right to engage in without requesting permission from any secular authority - such as the ordination of priests, for example, and their appointment to parishes as parish priests."
At the same time Father Ly and his parishioners demonstrated for the return of confiscated Church properties. Pictures of banners with slogans such as "We need genuine religious liberty" or "Religious Liberty or Death" were sent around the world - for Father Ly knows how to make use of the modern means of communication. He drew up a ten-point declaration on religious liberty and composed numerous appeals and reports on the oppression of Catholics - and even addressed himself directly to human rights organisations around the world. Finally, when Father Ly wrote an eyewitness report at the request of the US Congress, in which he approved of American economic pressure as a means of promoting religious liberty in Vietnam, he became altogether unbearable for the Vietnamese authorities.
"Save our parish priest, save our parish priest!"
On 16 May 2001 Father Ly was finally arrested in a neighbouring parish. An eyewitness described the scene as follows:
"At 4.30 am we heard loud footsteps around the church. At that moment the Catholics were on the seventh Ave of one of the decades of the Sorrowful Mysteries. As they always did, the Catholic laity were praying out loud while their priest was on the telephone, so that outsiders could not listen in to his conversation. Suddenly two policemen appeared in the church, then four, then six, then too many to count. The people began to shout "Save our priest!", Save our priest!" But in vain, for then the blows began to rain down on them - from sticks and electric batons... An old woman, who had stayed up all night praying, was thrown to the ground... and then kicked as she lay on the ground. A seventy-year-old man who had been keeping watch in the church for a hundred days, tried to open the church door, but the police held him back so that the people could not escape into the parish room. They struck him with electric batons. His whole body was covered in bruises. Those parishioners who had remained in the parish room were led out like prisoners, assaulted and beaten. Those outside the parish room were forced to line up against the wall and remain motionless. A few of the women, who moved, were beaten. There were police stationed outside the house of every Catholic. No one was allowed to leave their homes. Those who did not obey were beaten. Although the people shouted and cried and protested, the houses remained firmly shut.
"We are going to look for our parish priest"
"The next day two hundred Catholics went out onto the streets", the eyewitness reports. In front of the building of the local people's committee the police challenged them: "where are you going?" The children replied: "we're going to look for our priest. Give us back our priest!" The police called for reinforcements. "A large number of the militia arrived, threatening us and using their electric batons to drive us back." Faced with such outright violence the people were forced to retreat, but they still cried out: "give us back our priest!" "Down with the regime of terror!", "Religious liberty or death!" But the more they cried out, the more violently they were forced back. The police filmed them, using video cameras. One young woman fought back against them and said: "where have you hidden my parish priest? Have you already killed him and cut him up and buried him secretly? If so, then at least you should give us his body back." The police threatened to shoot her, whereupon this woman cried out: "I'm ready to die. Go ahead, shoot me!". The police forced the Catholics back as far as the church yard.
The people began to pray in front of the statue of Our Lady. The police forbade them to do so. So then the Catholics went into the church. The police pursued them and grabbed hold of the women to drag them out of the church again. The Catholics cried out: "are you going to persecute us for our Faith then?" Then the police made them all take off their straw hats, so that they could film their faces...
The trial of Father Ly was held in private. No member of the public was allowed to attend. He was allowed no counsel for his defence and he himself was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. Following his arrest the police attempted to intimidate the parishioners who were campaigning for his release, using arbitrary house searches, interrogations and maltreatment as a matter of routine. For his own part Father Ly is ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of religious liberty. But the authorities are trying to get back at him through his relatives. Two nephews and a niece have been arrested in different localities, and the nephews are still in prison to this day.
Michael Ragg

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