PRESS RELEASE
Paris, December 6, 2000
"Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me", Exodus 5:1
"Whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak", Jeremiah 1:7
"Be not afraid of them", Ezekiel 2:6
Those are the verses Father Nguyen Van Ly invoked in his Proclamation on November 22, 2000. The 10-points Proclamation by this Roman Catholics priest from the Nguyet Bieu Parish in Hue City, widely distributed inside and outside Vietnam, revealed the government's confiscation of lands that belonged to various parishes in Hue and its severe control over the Catholic Church.
Soon after 1975, the Nguyet Bieu Parish lost to the local agricultural commune 10,000m2 of rice-growing land and 5,000m2 of dry land, including the 1905 m2 within the perimeter of the church. According to Order 297/CP, issued on November 11, 1997 by the Government, the commune must return the entire area of 1905m2 inside the perimeter and 3,000 to 5,000 m2 of rice-growing land for compensation. In reality, however, the commune returned only 250m2 of rice-growing land and 250m2 of pond surface. Not only that, it usurped an additional 200 m2 of land inside the church perimeter for irrigation canal.
After submitting many complaints to the local government for redress without results, the parishioners of Nguyet Bieu decided to redirect the irrigation canal around the church perimeter so that they can cultivate the land inside the perimeter as a source of income for the church's religious activities.
From November 16 to 20, 2000, Public Security cadres arrived and prevented parishioners from moving soil to the area to build the new canal. People of the parish, however, continued to prepare the land inside the church perimeter for the coming growing season.
On December 4, 2000, parishioners Nguyet Bieu planted a large banner with the words "We need Freedom of Religion" on the church's land and started to sow seed. Public Security cadres arrived immediately and tried hard to intimidate Father Nguyen Van Ly. They uprooted the banner and threw it into the nearby pond. Facing the threat of further terrorization in the coming days, Father Nguyen Van Ly sent out a desperate appeal for support.
Nguyet Bieu is a small and poor parish of about 150 Catholics. Nevertheless, it has been used by the Government as the detainment site for Father Peter Nguyen Huu Giai, the former Superior of the Hoan Thien Seminary in Hue, from 1987 to 1993. Father Tadeo Nguyen Van Ly has also been detained here since 1995 after a 10-year prison term near Hanoi. Father Nguyen Van Ly was the secretary of the late Archbishop Phillip Nguyen Kim Dien, a staunch defender of the Church and freedom of religion.
Father Nguyen Van Ly's Proclamation and Appeal are being translated and will be distributed as soon as possible.