Father Ly is a Catholic priest and one of Vietnam’s most prominent dissidents. He has been a strong advocate for religious freedom and democracy for over 40 years, having previously been imprisoned from 1977 to 1978 and again from 1983 to 1992.
Freedom Now first represented Father Ly during the latter part of his 2001-2005 detention. In May 2001, nearly 60 police officers stormed An Truyen church to arrest Father Ly after he submitted invited testimony to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urging the U.S. government to reject a U.S.-Vietnam trade pact to protest ongoing human rights abuses in Vietnam. In October 2001, Father Ly was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “damaging the government’s unity policy” after a two-hour, closed trial.
After a sustained advocacy campaign by Freedom Now, Father Ly was released in February 2005. The campaign included resolutions from the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Father Ly returned to his advocacy work but was again detained on February 18, 2007 for attempting to organize a boycott of an upcoming election. During his four-hour trial, Father Ly shouted out “down with communism” and a security guard immediately silenced him by clamping his hand over his mouth. He was ultimately sentenced to eight years in prison.
During his imprisonment, Father Ly suffered three strokes and was regularly denied proper medical care.
In February 2009, Freedom Now filed a petition with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Father Ly. In September 2010, the Working Group found his detention to be in violation of international law and called for Vietnam to release him immediately.
Freedom Now again mobilized international pressure to call for the release of Father Ly, including op-eds in the Washington Post, Mercury News, and The Diplomat, press releases regarding his medical condition, a report to the UN Human Rights Council prior to Vietnam’s universal periodic review, a letter to President Barack Obama, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Thirty-seven members of the U.S. Senate called for Father’s Ly release in July 2009. This call was renewed by 16 U.S. Senators in August 2011.
Father Ly was released on medical parole on March 15, 2010. He was rearrested by the Vietnamese government on July 25, 2011, ending one-year and four-months of temporary medical parole. He was granted an amnesty on May 19, 2016 and returned home where he finished serving five years house arrest in May 2021.