Symptoms of mental instability suspicious of his "re-education"
Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) - Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, sentenced to 15 years for speaking out about the persecution of Christians, received a reduction of the term for "good attitude and conduct". AsiaNews sources in Hué confirm that Fr. Van Ly wrote and signed letters in prison praising Vietnamese socialism and the politics of the Communist Party. According to individuals who were allowed to visit him, the priest showed symptoms of mental imbalance and that he seemed to have been drugged as part of the effort "to re-educate him". The Vatican Delegation, led by Mons. Piero Parolin, were able to talk about the Van Ly case with Hanoi authorities during their journey to Vietnam at the end of April. For every answer, government representatives showed Van Ly's letters as demonstrating his "re-education."
A Hué priest declared: "This letter shows a-180 degree change. We suspect that he has been drugged. Now the government is no longer afraid of him. It seems that in soon they will free him completely."
The news of his sentence reduction was circulated by state agency Vietnam News Agency.
Father Van Ly, 58 years, sent a letter in 2001 to the American Congress asking for a delay in the ratification of the bilateral trade agreement between United States and Vietnam, citing Vietnam's human rights violations and religious persecutions. Father Van Ly was arrested last October and condemned to 15 years of prison. The punishment was then reduced to 10 years. Now a local court ordered the jail term to be reduced to 5 years, with 5 years of house arrest, declaring Fr. Van Ly as having "good conduct in prison", and complying with prison rules. American human rights groups consider Father Van Ly a prisoner of conscience and the U.S. government has pressured for his release.
The news of Father Van Ly's sentence reduction arrives just before a visit from European Union representatives in Vietnam for a meeting on human rights, which will also address the treatment of the prisoners.