Opposition to religion in Vietnam remains systematic, says Geneva Report

 

Official ideological opposition to religion in Vietnam remains systemic, according to a report released recently by the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission

Christian Post

Wednesday, Apr. 13, 2005

 

Official ideological opposition to religion in Vietnam remains systemic, according to a global network representing more than 335 million Christians from 121 nations and over 100 international organizations.

In a recent document on international religious freedom presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights, the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) reported that the terminology and tone of many government documents on religion indicates “a continuing suspicion of religion, especially Christianity, as being unpatriotic.”

“The State acts as an official arbiter of defining ‘good, legitimate religion,’” the RLC stated in its Geneva 2005 report. “Vietnam’s leaders still do not understand the ‘freedom of religion’ its constitution proclaims.”

In 2004, several policy developments were announced by Vietnamese authorities regarding religion. On June 18, 2004, Vietnam published the long-awaited Ordinance on Religion. According to the RLC many religious leaders strongly opposed it, upon receiving it. In summary the critiques complained that is only granted freedom to ask permission for a myriad of large and small religious matters, with no obligation on the part of the government to respond.

Many of Vietnam’s house churches remain unable to register, the RLC reported. A recent Decree (22) requires religious organizations to be in operation in Vietnam for 20 years prior to the issuance of the Ordinance on Religion in order to be eligible to register. The house church movement in Vietnam and the large movement to Christian faith by minorities in the Northwest provinces date from 1988 or 1989. So a huge segment of Protestant believers in Vietnam are still not even eligible to apply for legal status, the the Commission added.

According to the RLC, the large number of ethnic Montagnard Christians and churches in the Central Highlands continue to suffer harassment and persecution, which is well documented by New York-based Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups. Of the many hundreds of churches the government forcibly disbanded in 2002 and 2003, only 36 are now officially recognized. The RLC reports that the situation is far from "normalized," as the government claims. Many Christians are among those imprisoned and hiding because of participation in peaceful demonstration for religious freedom and rights to ancestral lands in April 2004.

Vietnam has also received much negative publicity over its terrible handling of the "Mennonite Six"- six Vietnamese Mennonite church workers arrested in 2004 and jointly tried and convicted on Nov. 12 2004 for "resisting persons doing official duty". The General Secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang received a three years sentence and the others lesser ones. An appeal to the People’s Supreme Court was granted for the Rev. Quang and Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach on Feb. 2 2005, but was cancelled at the last moment without explanation.

The hearing was later rescheduled for Apr. 12, but according to the Mennonite World Conference, the People’s Supreme Court of Vietnam upheld the prison sentences of the two Mennonite Church workers.

Meanwhile, sources say the appeal of the one-year sentence of Le Thi Hong Lien, the sole woman among six Mennonite church workers, cannot proceed after she reportedly suffered a mental breakdown because of the treatment she had received in prison.

Lien, a zealous church worker who specialized in teaching the Bible to small children, was reportedly transferred last month to the hospital in Bien Hoa, fifty kilometers north-east of Ho Chi Minh City. According to MWC, the move followed a concerted international appeal to Vietnamese authorities to provide Lien with the care and treatment she needed.

Prior to her transfer, Lien reportedly suffered in prison from severe mental illness for many months.

The RLC also included in its report the further arrest of 19 Mennonites on Feb. 27, 2005 in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

Kenneth Chan
kenneth@christianpost.com