Three
Fundamental Causes of Persecution Remain in Vietnam
Writer Says No Change In Fundamental Causes Of Persecution In Vietnam In Last
Five Years
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service*
Thursday, July 14, 2005
VIETNAM (ANS) -- Despite three new legal documents on religion
since last November, government harassment of religious communities in Vietnam
has not eased.
According to an article by Magda Hornemann, Forum 18 News Service, prison
sentences on Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang and a colleague were confirmed
in April, two Hoa Hao Buddhists were given prison sentences and massive fines
the same month for distributing the teachings of their movement's founder, while
Hmong Protestants in the north-west were beaten by local officials and had their
properties confiscated in May. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and
numerous Protestant churches remain outlawed.
Hornemann says a comparison of the situation five years ago and today shows no
change in the fundamental causes of persecution: the restrictions on
unregistered religious activity, the interference in the activity of registered
religious communities and the lack of a transparent line of command from the
central government to local officials which allows local violations to continue.
If religious freedom is to improve, these three causes of persecution will be
crucial benchmarks of change.
Over the past year, says Hornemann, Vietnam has implemented three new legal
documents on religion: a new ordinance on religious affairs and two prime
ministerial decrees on how that ordinance should be implemented. The ordinance
officially went into effect in November 2004 and ostensibly replaced the 1999
prime ministerial decree as the controlling government document on religion --
hence the ordinance's importance (for an analysis of the ordinance see F18News
21 September 2004 Forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=415 ). This piece of
legislation, along with the two implementation decrees -- one of which
specifically addresses Protestant Christian issues -- was hailed by Vietnamese
officials as an indication that their government was taking greater strides
toward protecting people's right to "believe or not believe" in religion.
Hornemann writes: "Yet, during this 12-month period, the government continued to
violate religious freedom. On 8 June 2004, just days before the religious
affairs ordinance was promulgated, Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, a leader of the non
state-sanctioned Mennonite Church, was arrested on charges related to an
altercation in March 2004, when police allegedly entered the Mennonite church in
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where Quang had lived and worked, and harassed other
church workers. Pastor Quang was sentenced to three years in prison in November
2004, the month when the religious affairs ordinance went into effect. In April
2005, a court upheld Pastor Quang's sentence and that of his associate, the
Mennonite evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach.
Hornemann says that in late September 2004, according to Human Rights Watch,
hundreds of local officials and police in the Central Highland province of Kon
Tum arrived at the home of another Mennonite pastor, Nguyen Cong Chinh. They
confiscated his belongings and burned his home and chapel, which were later
bulldozed.
She writes: "Two months later, a court in the province of Dak Nong, also in the
Central Highlands, sentenced 17 ethnic minority Protestants to up to 10 years in
prison for undermining national security for joining an April 2004 protest
against religious repression and land confiscation. In May 2005, Hmong
Protestant Christians in Vietnam's north-western provinces told Radio Free Asia
that they were beaten by local officials and that their properties were
confiscated."
Hornemann continues: "Relations between the Catholic Church and the government
remain tense as the communist regime continues to interfere in the training,
appointment and assignment of priests. Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, who has
become one of the most prominent Vietnamese dissidents in recent years, was
released from prison in February 2005 as part of the government's general
amnesty to 8,000 prisoners and the same month, the government approved the
appointment of Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet as Archbishop of Hanoi, replacing the
ailing Cardinal Pham Dinh Tung. Yet the government's record of interference in
church affairs had prompted the Archbishop of Hue to tell Asia News in November
2004 that the new religious ordinance will continue to limit the Catholic
Church's ability to conduct its own affairs."
During the same period, Hornemann says, the state has maintained its control
over non-Christian religious communities and committed violations against
members of those communities. In June 2004, just as the new religious ordinance
was promulgated, a Hoa Hao organization in the United States reported that the
Vietnamese government elevated a state-appointed administrative committee --
headed by a long-time communist -- that has been managing the religious
community. The re-named Central Administrative Council arbitrarily replaced the
charter of the religious community with a new one and changed the regulations
governing the Hoa Hao Ancestral Temple, which is perceived by many Hoa Hao
Buddhists to remain the property of the family of the religion's founder, Huynh
Phu So.
Hornemann writes that inn February 2005, according to the same US-based Hoa Hao
organization, two Hoa Hao Buddhists, Tran Van Hoang and Tran Van Thang, were
arrested at their home in the province of An Giang for the unauthorized
distribution of compact discs and cassettes containing Huynh Phu So's teachings.
In April, the brothers were handed prison sentences of nine and six months
respectively, while Hoang was also fined 20 million dongs (8,247 Norwegian
kroner, 1,040 Euros or 1,260 US dollars) and Thang 10 million dongs. These are
astronomical sums, given that Vietnam's annual per capita GDP is only some 500
US dollars. In August 2004, according to Agence France Presse, a cleric of the
indigenous Cao Dai religion was arrested for illegal preaching.
In addition, she says, the government has continued to outlaw the Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), the dominant Buddhist organization before the
communists reunified the country in 1975. In May 2005, according to the
Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIB), police
interrogated several young monks in the Nguyen Thieu Monastery, where the UBCV
Patriarch, the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, is under "pagoda arrest." They were
accused of disseminating special messages by the patriarch and his deputy, the
Venerable Thich Quang Do, commemorating the birth of the Buddha and threatened
with expulsion if they did not immediately cease all affiliations and contacts
with the UBCV.
Hornemann writes that such continued harassment has led many critics of the new
religious ordinance to conclude that it is simply "old wine in new wineskins."
Truong Tri Hien, a former leader of the unregistered Mennonite Church in Ho Chi
Minh City now in exile, argued that the three documents contain considerable
contradictions which provide opportunities for local officials to interpret and
enforce these regulations at their own discretion (for Hien's personal
commentary, see F18News 6 July 2005 www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=598
). Put simply, Hien and others argue that the government's policy on religion
remains unchanged -- and repressive.
"While difficult to challenge this assessment of the regulations, it may be
premature to conclude that government policy will not be affected by them. After
all, the ordinance only went into effect seven months ago, and the two decrees
even more recently. It is difficult to imagine how any government can reverse
policies and practices that have been in existence for nearly thirty years with
one stroke of the pen, let alone a government that has had very strained
relations with the religious communities," Hornemann says.
She adds: "Moreover, even if policies are easy to change, mindsets are not.
Communist party and government officials mostly remain trapped in the
anti-religion mindset. Furthermore, even if any of the officials were remotely
sympathetic to the plight of religious believers, they would likely still give
priority to their personal political and professional interests. More time may
be required before it is clear how far these regulations will eventually effect
real changes in the state of religious freedom.
"However, how much time is sufficient to reach a solid conclusion about the
impact of this latest round of regulations? Given that it was approximately five
years ago in April 1999 that the government last promulgated a prime ministerial
decree on religious affairs, five years may be a useful reference point to make
such an assessment. Moreover, it was around this time in 1998 that the United
States became the first -- and so far only -- country to enact a law that
required its government to issue annual reports on the conditions of religious
freedom across the globe, and Vietnam's religious freedom conditions very
quickly became the focus of US congressional attention, particularly when the
two countries signed and ratified their Bilateral Trade Agreement."
Five years ago, Hornemann writes, the UBCV was already a banned religious
organization. The patriarch was already under pagoda arrest and the
second-ranking leader of the group was under regular surveillance by the
government. Government officials harassed UBCV monks, preventing them from
conducting charitable acts such as flood relief. Some were not even permitted to
renovate the pagodas where they lived. Ultimately, in 2001, the Venerable Thich
Quang Do was placed under house arrest in punishment for trying to organize
other monks and nuns to take the UBCV patriarch from his place of confinement in
Quang Ngai province to Ho Chi Minh City for medical care.
Since then, Hornemann says, the patriarch has been allowed to seek medical care
outside his place of confinement and met the prime minister in 2003, who
reportedly told the patriarch that his confinement and that of the Venerable
Thich Quang Do resulted from "mistakes" by local officials. Following this
meeting, the government terminated the detention order against the patriarch.
Yet, after UBCV leaders met to discuss UBCV affairs, both the patriarch and the
Venerable Thich Quang Do were re-confined to their residences, where they remain
today, while some of the other monks who participated in this meeting were
sentenced to long-term administrative detention.
Hornemann says that about five years ago, the government had just conferred
recognition on Cao Daism (1997) and Hoa Hao Buddhism (1999) (for an analysis of
the backgrounds of these indigenous Vietnamese religions see F18News 28 July
2004 www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=378 ). The key pre-condition for
state recognition of both religions was the establishment of state- appointed
administrative organs for them. By all accounts, these state impositions faced
strong resistance. In fact, in 2000, some Hoa Hao Buddhist leaders attempted to
establish a management organ apart from the state- approved one, leading to the
imprisonment of several Hoa Hao Buddhists. Adherents of Cao Daism have also been
arrested and imprisoned, including two in October 1998 who tried to meet the
visiting United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. They were
held for two years.
The issue of management has not been the only issue confronting Hoa Hao Buddhism
and Cao Daism, Hornemann writes.
She says: "Hoa Hao Buddhists have repeatedly complained that the government has
refused to publish all the writings by the founder of the religion. They have
also felt that the communist regime has never provided a satisfactory
explanation for his death, which many Hoa Hao Buddhists suspect was at the hands
of the communists. Adherents of Cao Daism have complained that the government
has not permitted them to conduct the necessary rituals for selecting their
clerics. However, for adherents of both faiths, the key complaint against the
state, aside from the state's imposition of the management organs, is that it
has not returned properties confiscated after 1975.
"Arguably, the Catholic Church in Vietnam has had better relations with the
Hanoi government than other religious communities, partly because of the
significant role Catholicism has come to play in Vietnam's modern history. It is
also a reflection of the communist regime's desire to normalize relations with
the Vatican. The Vatican and Hanoi had long worked on an agreement over the
procedure for appointing bishops. Nonetheless, the government retains inordinate
control over selecting seminarians and assigning priests to parishes. This state
interference has left the Church complaining of too few priests to serve the
growing Catholic community. The Catholics also face the problem of confiscated
properties, many of which remain unreturned.
"These issues were already on the agenda in talks between the Vietnamese
government and the Catholic Church when Father Ly, viewed by some Vietnamese
Catholic clerics as a maverick, was arrested for joining other Vietnamese
religious leaders in trying to establish an interfaith organization independent
of the state. In the eyes of the communist regime, his crime was compounded soon
after when he submitted written testimony about the state of religious freedom
to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in
Washington. Eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison, his recent release was
most likely the result of extensive foreign pressure on the Vietnamese
government.
For Protestant Christians, the situation five years ago was grim. Hornemann
says.
"Although the state finally recognized the Evangelical Church in the south in
2001, the unregistered house church community faced constant harassment from
local officials. Although some unregistered Protestant leaders, including Pastor
Quang, were 'invited' to visit the head of the Religious Affairs Committee in
2002, the meeting yielded no positive results. Pastor Quang was indeed
eventually arrested and imprisoned. In the meantime, religious minorities in the
Central Highlands and the north-western provinces were actively repressed, with
a steady flow of reports detailing the gruesome means by which local and
provincial officials forced the religious minorities in these areas to renounce
their faith.
"Demonstrations from 2000 by the Central Highlanders culminated in mass marches
in February 2001, whose main grievances against the state were the confiscation
of properties and the denial of religious freedom. These demonstrations resulted
in an overwhelming state crackdown that landed numerous Central Highlanders in
prison while forcing others to flee across
the border to Cambodia."
Hornemann says this brief overview has demonstrated the remarkable similarity
between the state of religious freedom five years ago and today.
"None of the issues then on the agenda has been resolved. Not only has the
government failed to end attempts to control and repress religious communities,
some have even argued that the regime has found new instruments of control, in
part through the newly-promulgated religious ordinance. Some Protestant leaders
maintain that the government is now employing the Evangelical Church of Vietnam
in the south as a means to control Protestant congregations in the Central
Highlands. In effect, the regime is attempting to curtail Protestant activities
there by only allowing congregations registered as part of the Evangelical
Church of Vietnam in the south to function.
"Although this overview leads to the depressing conclusion that the Communist
regime has failed to improve its policy and practice toward religious
communities, it has also yielded a few benchmarks by which foreign governments
and organizations can assess how much genuine progress in protecting religious
freedom will have taken place five years from now."
Hornemann says: "First, it is clear that the communist regime must end its ban
on certain religious communities and restrictions on the activities of any
religious community simply because it has not been approved by the state. One of
the fundamental causes of harassment of individual communities is the very fact
that the regime has demonstrated no willingness to cease or at least restrain
its arbitrary power to deny state recognition to some religious groups. Without
change in this fundamental policy, no changes in regulations will bring about
genuine religious freedom.
"Second, the regime must also be willing to cease its control over
state-sanctioned religious communities. No genuine religious freedom can exist
unless religious communities can determine their own affairs in accordance with
their own wishes and regulations. The new religious ordinance is unlikely to
help promote religious freedom as it continues to stipulate the state's
prerogative in determining who may lead religious communities and what those
communities can do.
"Finally, there is no clear and predictable line of authority in which the
central government is ultimately held accountable for all official policies and
practices, allowing harassment of religious communities to continue unchecked at
local level. In the new religious ordinance and its predecessor, the provincial
and local governments have been conferred powers to manage religious affairs in
their areas. While this is rational -- central government would not be burdened
with the minutiae of administering state policies on a local level -- this
approach is filled with potential pitfalls: the central government can always
attribute religious freedom violations to over-zealous or corrupt local
officials, as did the prime minister to the UBCV patriarch. Without ensuring
that the central government will ultimately be held accountable for religious
freedom violations, it will be difficult to advance genuine religious freedom in
Vietnam."
Finnaly, says Hornemann, Article 38 of the new religious ordinance stipulates
that should any provisions of the ordinance conflict with stipulations in
international treaties that Vietnam has signed, "the regulations prescribed by
the international treaties shall prevail." Vietnam has acceded to a number of
human rights conventions guaranteeing religious freedom, including the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Whether or not the
Vietnamese government means what it says when it claims to want to implement
religious freedom will depend on whether it can meet these three crucial tests.
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