Fr Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, a human rights campaigner jailed by Vietnamese authorities, was released from prison just before President Barack Obama’s arrival in the country on May 22, it emerged last week.
Ordained in 1974, Fr Ly had spent more than two decades cumulatively in prison and 15 years under house arrest on a range of charges related to his activism. In 2007 he was sentenced to eight years in prison and five years under house arrest for anti-government activities. He was released in 2010 to get treatment for a brain tumour, only to be reimprisoned the following year.
Fr Ly had been an outspoken rights activist, campaigning for democracy and freedom of speech and speaking out against the government confiscation of Church property.
Though his release was welcomed by the US government, his sentence was about to end anyway. He was released barely one month short of serving a full eight years. It is unclear whether he still faces a five-year probationary house arrest that was part of the original sentencing.
A priest in Hue City who asked not to be named told ucanews.com that government officials informed Archbishop François Xavier Le Van Hong of Hue that Fr Ly would be granted a special reprieve for the 126th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s birth on May 19.
The priest said the government “rarely releases prisoners of religious freedom and conscience. On that occasion, Fr Ly was pardoned due to the government bowing to pressure from the US. The government made this concession to the US so as to get financial support from Obama’s visit.”
Murdered missionary nun is buried in South Sudan
A Slovakian-born nun who was killed in South Sudan has been buried there.
Holy Spirit Missionary Sister Veronika Theresia Racková, 58, director of St Bakhita Medical Centre in Yei, South Sudan, was shot in Yei on the night of May 16 while driving an ambulance after taking an expectant mother to the hospital. She died in Nairobi, Kenya on May 20.
A memorial Mass in Nairobi had already been celebrated by Archbishop Charles Balvo, apostolic nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan.
At the burial service last Friday, Bishop Erkolano Lodu Tombe of Yei diocese told mourners: “The real home for every Christian is in heaven. Every person in this world is a foreigner.”
Fr Zacharia Angotowa Sebit, vicar general of Yei diocese, told Catholic News Service that Catholics from the diocese asked that Sister Racková be interred in South Sudan.
“She died … serving the needy of South Sudan,” Fr Sebit said. He added that Catholics in South Sudan had forgiven the three soldiers charged for her murder.
“It is now up to the government to play its rightful part by ensuring that those soldiers are rightly punished,” he said.
Mob attacks Christian mother
A mob has ransacked and torched seven Christian homes in a province south of Cairo after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman.
The Coptic Orthodox Church said that during the attack the mother of the Christian man was publicly stripped of her clothes by the mob to humiliate her. Her son fled the village.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told local television: “We are all one and the law must take its course.”
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