Crackdown Ahead of Buddha Day
RFA – 05/03/2012
Vietnam
is pressuring unregistered Buddhists leading up to a religious holiday.
Vietnamese authorities
are cracking down on an officially unrecognized Buddhist organization with
followers around the country ahead of the anniversary of the Buddha’s birth,
according to a religious rights group.
The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIB) said in a
statement Thursday that authorities were targeting the outlawed Unified Buddhist
Church of Vietnam (UBCV) in the lead up to the 2,556th Vesak celebration on May
5.
Religious activity is closely monitored in the communist Vietnamese state.
IBIB said senior monks from the UBCV had faced increasing threats and pressure
from police in the central provinces of Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam-Danang, Phu
Yen, and Binh Thuan to ban celebrations of the traditional Buddhist holiday.
In Thua Thien-Hue, UBCV members had been forced to tear down logos specially
designed for Vesak to symbolize the international outreach of the organization,
which has members in 80 different countries.
The IBIB said that over the past week, senior monks in the province had been
summoned for interrogation and told to sign an indictment of the UBCV and its
plans for Vesak celebrations, which the monks had refused to do.
It said the monks had vowed to refuse all indictments and to continue with Vesak
celebrations, even if they were forced to hold sit-ins and non-violent
demonstrations in the face of possible police action.
Pagoda siege
And in Quang Nam-Danang, UBCV Buddhist Youth leader Le Cong Cau told the IBIB
that security police had imposed a round-the-clock surveillance on Giac Minh
Pagoda, which is the headquarters of the UBCV provincial committee and the
organization’s Buddhist Youth Movement.
The IBIB said that the local police station opposite the pagoda had trained a
camera on the building’s entrance, and posted an official at the window to take
down the license plates of all cars entering the pagoda’s courtyard.
It said around 20 other officials had been permanently posted around the
entrance and in surrounding cafes, “ready to intercept anyone who enters or
leaves the premises,” preventing the delivery of food and supplies to the
pagoda.
“Buddhists from the Giac Minh congregation are obliged to wait until nightfall
to secretly bring bags of rice and basic necessities to the monks inside,” the
group said.
Senior monks from Giac Minh have also repeatedly been summoned for
interrogations related to planned Vesak activities.
‘Working sessions’
The IBIB said that according to Thich Giac Hieu, head of the UBCV’s Phu Yen
provincial committee, several monks and nuns, as well as members of the UBCV
Buddhist youth movement, had been summoned for interrogations over the past few
days.
He said that all had been warned of “serious consequences” if they attempted to
attend UBCV Vesak celebrations in Phu Yen this weekend.
The same was true for monks in Binh Thuan province, where UBCV provincial youth
commissioner Thich Thong Hai had been called for a “working session,” or police
questioning, on April 20.
The IBIB said that Thich Thong Hai had been accompanied by Tran Van Y and Le
Cuong, two leaders of the UBCV’s Buddhist Youth Movement, but that police had
refused to let the two men follow him into the building.
“During the ‘working session,’ which lasted two hours, People’s Committee
officials and police told Thich Thong Hai that the UBCV in Binh Thuan would not
be allowed to hold Vesak celebrations,” IBIB said.
“They warned that if the UBCV persisted despite this ban, the authorities would
take ‘preventive measures’.”
The Vesak is the most important event in the Buddhist calendar, and the IBIB
said that UBCV members across the country had expressed concern that authorities
will prevent them from celebrating the nearly 2,000-year-old unbroken religious
tradition.
“The situation … reflects the continuous harassments and hardships experienced
by members of the outlawed UBCV all over Vietnam,” the group said.
The IBIB said that UBCV Patriarch Thich Quang Do, an 84-year-old nominee for the
2012 Nobel Peace prize, had also been prevented from preaching to followers at
the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Saigon where he is being held under virtual
house arrest.
“This ongoing persecution belies Vietnam’s repeated declarations that it
‘respects religious freedom and human rights’,” the IBIB said, calling on the
international community to press Vietnam ceasing repression of the UBCV.
‘Patriarch message’
Earlier this week, the IBIB had transmitted a declaration from Thich Quang Do
calling on Buddhists to maintain their tradition of engagement to “protect the
Vietnamese people and nation” during the crackdown, in a message smuggled out
from the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery.
“When oppressed by tyrannical dynasties or regimes that denigrate Buddhism, when
faced with aggressors who violate our sovereignty or trample on the people’s
freedom of opinion, we Buddhists are always on the front line of the movement to
eradicate these threats,” the message read.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a congressional
watchdog, said the Vietnamese government controls all religious communities,
severely restricts and penalizes independent religious practice, and represses
individuals and groups viewed as challenging its authority.
Vietnam
continues to imprison and detain individuals for religious activity and for
advocacy of religious freedom, the commission said, adding that independent
religious activity remains illegal while legal protections for
government-approved religious organizations are vague.
Reported by Joshua Lipes.