Buddhist Leader Slams New Decree
RFA - 11-30-2012
The head of a
non-recognized Buddhist church says religion in Vietnam will be further
restricted.
A prominent Vietnamese
Buddhist leader on Friday called a new religious decree issued by the one party
communist state “harsh” and said authorities were working tirelessly to disband
his organization.
Head of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) Thich Quang Do, 84, who is
currently under de facto house arrest, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service in a
telephone interview that the newly issued Decree 92 will seriously curtail
religious freedom in the country.
“Decree 92 is harsh,” he said. “It is much more restrictive than previous
decrees.”
The decree, which was introduced earlier this month, spells out directives and
measures for implementing the Ordinance on Beliefs and Religion governing
religious practice in Vietnam.
It lays out procedures by which religious organizations can register their
activities, places of worship, and clerics to operate openly or to apply for
official recognition.
Religious activity is strictly monitored in Vietnam, where groups must operate
under government-controlled management boards.
The government recognizes 31 religious organizations representing 11 different
religions including Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao
traditions.
But members of non-recognized groups, such as Christian house churches or Thich
Quang Do’s UBCV, are banned, with some of their members living under house
arrest for practicing religion outside state-sanctioned groups.
In a Friday statement from the Paris-based International Buddhist Information
Bureau (IBIB), which is affiliated with the UBCV, Thich Quang Do said that
authorities had “systematically repressed” his organization since the North
Vietnamese took control of the South in 1975 and united Vietnam under communist
rule.
During a rare meeting on Thursday with Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Hugh
Borrowman in Ho Chi Minh City, Thich Quang Do said the UBCV has since been
forbidden to conduct religious activities, open schools or launch humanitarian
operations.
“The authorities are seeking every pretext to disband the UBCV. When they find
one, they will not hesitate to suppress us,” he told Borrowman during their talk
at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery, where the Buddhist leader has been under house
arrest without charge since 2003.
The UBCV was effectively banned in 1981 and supplanted by the state-sanctioned
Vietnam Buddhist Sangha (VBS), which is controlled by the Communist Party’s
Fatherland Front.
Thich Quang Do said that since his house arrest, he has “lived like a prisoner”
in the monastery, where he is forbidden from preaching or reciting prayers on
anyone’s behalf, and all of his visitors are monitored.
Decree 92 was issued by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Nov. 8 and will come
into force on Jan. 1, replacing an earlier decree issued in 2005.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.