29/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - Ashton condemns imprisonment of dissident priest. EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton called on Friday 29 July for the release of Vietnamese Catholic priest and dissident Father Nguyen Van Ly who was arrested on Monday after more than a year of interim release on medical grounds. Ashton repeated the EU's call for “the release of all peaceful advocates of human rights in Vietnam” and regretted “the failure by an otherwise much-valued partner country - with a fine record of poverty reduction and playing an increasingly responsible role in the world - to measure up to international standards of respect for basic, universal human rights, including freedom of expression”. Father Ly was sentenced in 2007 to eight years n prison for propaganda against the state and was accused of being a founder of the “Bloc 8406” pro-democracy movement set up on 8 April 2006, calling for multi-party politics in a country where the Communist party exerts exclusive power. His sentence was suspended for one year in March 2010 when a series of strokes led to his partial paralysis and grave risk of death. (G.Ba/transl.rt)