Amnesty International USA

 

 

                    Group 19 members

Jean Libby

jlibby@alum.calberkeley.org

Fax:  1-650-618-8603

 

Senator Barbara Boxer

112 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

 

Dear Senator Boxer,

 

Thank you for your leadership in seeking the release of imprisoned Father Nguyen Van Ly in Vietnam. 

 

Amnesty International USA Group 19 recently mailed petitions with 780 signatures to President Nguyen Minh Triet in care of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington asking for the release of Father Ly. 

 

The petition campaign  was bilingual.  We circulated them among Vietnamese Americans in San Jose and in Westminster, with grateful response.  I have enclosed copies as examples.

 

Your efforts along with thirty-six colleagues in the United States Senate will surely help in alleviating conditions of political imprisonment in Vietnam.  Although the Vietnamese government ignores communications from Amnesty International USA, and treated the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom with rudeness and refusal to allow them visitation, protocol does require that they reply to Senators. 

 

Group 19 in Palo Alto, which was founded by the late Ginetta Sagan, has adopted Father Ly as an Individual at Risk campaign.  We are greatly encouraged to continue our efforts in seeking his release.by your leadership  He has been imprisoned regularly for seventeen years since 1983.  His recent imprisonment has been more than two years in solitary confinement. 

 

With sincere gratitude,

Jean Libby, case coordinator for Individual at Risk The Reverend Nguyen Van Ly

Group 19 Amnesty International USA

 

 

 

Cc:  U.S. State Department, Vietnam Desk, Washington, D.C.