The Vietnamese government has sent Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly back to prison after suspending the high-profile dissident's sentence on medical grounds last year, state media reported on Tuesday, saying bad behaviour by Ly was the reason.
Ly had been serving an eight-year sentence since 2007 for spreading anti-government propaganda, but a court granted him a suspension from March 15, 2010, for one year initially, so that he could get medical treatment.
During the suspension Ly, 65, "continued to engage in law-breaking activities such as compiling, storing and distributing documents opposing the Party and the state, inciting people to disturb security and staging demonstrations", the Vietnam News reported.
"His activities harmed political security and badly affected the national unity bloc," it said of the priest, who was confined to the archdiocese in the central city of Hue.
Western governments and rights groups have urged the authorities to free Ly, a pro-democracy activist who has been in and out of prison several times since the 1970s.
In January this year a US diplomat was roughed up by police, shoved into a van and driven away when he attempted to visit Ly in Hue. The US government lodged a strong protest with the Vietnamese government over the attack.
Ly suffered a stroke in prison in November 2009 that left him partially paralysed, Amnesty International has reported.