Sunday March 4 3:53 AM ET
HANOI (Reuters) - Communist authorities in Vietnam have put an outspoken Catholic priest under detention and branded him a traitor after he called on the U.S. Congress not to ratify a historic bilateral trade pact because of rights abuses.
Sunday's official Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) newspaper said Nguyen Van Ly had been put under ``administrative detention'' from Friday in Phu An commune in the central province of Thua Thien Hue. Under the terms of the detention Ly is not allowed to leave the commune.
The newspaper article carried a photograph of Ly and branded him a ``traitor.''
Ly, 54, has spent more than 10 years in jail or detention since the communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975 for his criticism of government religious polices.
Last month, in testimony prepared for a hearing in Washington of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Ly urged a halt to the trade pact, signed last year but still to be ratified, saying the United States should not give support to Vietnam's communists to ``prolong their totalitarian dictatorship.''