_WORLD WATCH______________________________
______________________VIETNAM____________________
Religious leaders seek freedom
Defy warning against “hostile forces”
Religious leaders in Vietnam have appealed to their government to recognize human rights as those rights have been defined by the United Nations—including the total freedom of religion, restitution of confiscated properties, and an end to Communist Party interference in religious affairs.
Le Kha Phieu, Secretary General of Vietnam’s Communist Party, recently warned of “hostile forces” undermining the socialist regime. Prime Minister Phan Yan added, “Our enemies use religion and human rights to sabotage the stability of the regime.”
The four religious leaders who signed the appeal are: Catholic Redemptorist Father Chan Tin and Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly of Nguyet Bieu parish in Hue archdiocese; Bhikkhu Thich Hanh, regional leader of unified Buddhism; and Le Quang Liem, leader of Hoa Hao Buddhism. They wrote, “After the conquest of southern Vietnam on April 30, 1975, the Communist Party imposed inhuman restrictions on religions.” The appeal denounced the confiscation and nationalization of institutions and properties belonging to various religions, laws which limit and suppress religious activity, false charges and detention of religious leaders opposing the regime, and Party infiltrators among believers to politicize objectives.
Despite this cruel suppression, the appeal said, “religions have continued to resist peacefully and without violence, demanding full religious freedom, and they are determined to struggle to reach the authentic religious freedom that exists in most of the world’s civilized countries.”
In the meantime, acts of repression continue. On December 20 in An Gian province, police used brute force to dispel 3,000 Buddhists taking part in a public ceremony to mark the anniversary of the birth of the founder of Hoa Hao Buddhism. One of the Catholic clergymen who signed the appeal to the government, Father Van Ly, is still under house arrest. Harassment of Father Van Ly, arrested, tried, and imprisoned several times in the 1970s, resumed after he issued on December 3, 2000 a ten-point appeal denouncing repression and control of the Church.