Public Opinion-International Support
By Van Nguyen
Although Vietnam is a member of the Geneva-based U.N.
Human Rights Council, it has been criticized by international human rights
groups for repression of religious freedom. In Vietnam, and elsewhere in the "socialism"
countries in the world, the tactics of the administration is to create State
Churches to serve it. In Beijing, for instance, a Catholic Church is created
for this purpose. The same is true with Vietnam. The Buddhist Church of Vietnam
is created: in replacement of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. By this way, the administration carried out
serial repression that aims to stifle the freedom of religion and the voice of the
believers, to promote the birth of State sanctioned Churches for the service of
the Communist Party. Independent sects
of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao Buddhism, non-sanctioned Evangelical Churches, energetic
Catholic congregations, and the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church are targeted
with oppression, repression, and persecution. In face of resident religious resistance
and international pressures, authorities cover up their acts of brutality and
violence with artful treks and obstructions. There is no let-up of religious persecution. The administration uses excessive
force on independent religious sects and organizations.
Reports documented forced
repatriation of Buddhist monks who sought refuge in Cambodia and Thailand. "Religious
problems” related to religious freedom remained unsolved. There were
complications and days in difficulty for obtaining registrations approvals of the
Evangelical Christian congregations and certain Cao Dai sects. Police raids
persisted. Religious groups inside the country and abroad repeatedly urged
President Barak Obama's administration to re-designate Vietnam as "an A
country of Particular Concern." The U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in March 2012, said the one-party rule of Vietnam
controls all religious communities, restricts and penalizes independent
religious practices, and represses individuals and groups viewed as the
challengers to its authority.
At the congressional hearing in Washington D.C., on
May 15, 2012, Michael Postner, the Human Rights Department Chief at the U.S,
State Ministry, pointed out various areas of concerns including continued
imprisonment of human rights activists and restrictions on access to
information. As regards religious freedom,
he criticized Hanoi’s limitations on religious freedom, inflicting harassment
on Christian and Buddhist groups, executing registrations obstructing religious
services and activities independent religious sects. .Although the country’s constitutional
laws guarantee the freedom of religion, they are not applied consistently.
Respect for human rights continues to deteriorate. The U.S. State Department
expressed great concern over the situation and studied whether the tightly-governed
State should be included in a blacklist of nations suppressing religious
freedom.
On September 12, 2012, the
U.S. House of Representatives passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2012,
tying U.S. non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam’s improvements in the protection of
human rights in the country. Congressman
Chris Smith, the author of the bill, maintained that Vietnam remains a violator
of human rights. Religious, political, and ethnic persecution still continues.
The regime must end its human rights abuses against its own citizens. Congresswoman
Lien Ros-Lehtinen, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, stressed that
Vietnam’s rights violations continue as its trade with the United States grows.
She also added that the United States should not reward this Communist dictatorship
until its government has made substantial progress and respected political
freedoms, media freedoms, and religious freedoms.
The U.S. State Department included Vietnam on its
list of Countries of Particular Concern for abuses of religious freedom in 2004
but removed it from the list two years later. Calls by rights groups and the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedoms have ever demanded the united
.State to reinstate the country's designation.
The U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom said in its annual 2012 report that the
one-party rule in Vietnam controls all religious communities and restricts and
penalizes religious practice, and represses individuals and groups viewed as
challenging its authority. The Communist State of Vietnam should be returned to
the list of the world's worst religious freedom offenders. The commission
recommended to the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton that Communist Vietnam be
included in the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). In the 2013 report, the
Commission renewed recommendation to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to
maintain Communist Vietnam in the CPC list as "it is still using vague
national security laws to suppress independent Buddhists, Evangelical
Christians, Hoa Hao, and Cao Dai activities. Moreover, it is definitively
working to stop the growth of minority ethnic Evangelical Christianity and
Catholicism through discrimination, violence, and repeated episodes of forced
denunciations of faith."
On April 11, 2013, at a congressional
hearing in Washington D.C., U.S. lawmakers and rights advocates called on
President Barrak Obama’s administration to
press Hanoi to refrain from rights repression. John Sutton of Human Rights
Watch told the hearing that up to 2012 at least 40 dissidents had been
convicted and sentenced. New arrests would likely see more jailing. He added
that authorities still executed repressive control on independent religious
sects> Vo Van Ai of the Paris-based Rights Advocacy maintained that Hanoi
carries on its mischievous policy to control independent religious sects,
placing their leaders under house arrest, and isolating them from their
followers. The Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, as a case in evidence, faces
systematic pressure, harassment, and intimidation. Joseph Cao Quang Anh, Vietnamese-American
former congressman further pointed out that the regime persecutes all
religions and those who don’t have a voice.
Religious communities face forced appropriation of land. The demolition of the
homes in Con Dau Parish in Da Nang in 2010 is a case in evidence. Congressman
Christ Smith, in particular, called for Hanoi to be put back on the list of
“Countries of Particular Concern.” In the 2013 annual report on international religious
freedoms the U.S. Statement said that Vietnam showed signs of improvement in
2013, butt highlighted a number of continuing concerns.
Regions freedom was growing worse. In July 2014, Heiner
Bielefeld, the special U.N. envoy, accused the Vietnam's authoritarian
government of serious violations of religious freedom. Police harass and
intimidate people during interrogation. The United Nations Special Rapporteur
on Religious Freedom said during his 11-day visit to Vietnam he realized how
the violations affected independent religious groups, including Hoa Hao Buddhists,
Cao Dai, Evangelical Christianity, and Catholic rights activists.
Ethnic Vietnamese from around the United States
joined in the group of hundreds of supporters voiced demands that the White House
to put greater importance on human rights in dealing with the one-party rule in
Vietnam. The U.S. Senator John Mc. Cain (Ariz. R), in his meetings with the
representatives of the Vietnamese community in Arizona in Phoenix (June 2014)
showed particular concerns about the rights situation in Vietnam and strong support
for the struggle for Vietnam cause for national territorial urbanity, freedom,
democracy, and human rights, especially the rights to religious freedom.
Vietnam became a member of the Geneva-based U.N.
Human Rights in January 2014 and underwent the second UPR in February 2014. In
June 20 of the same year, under the UPR process, Vietnam accepted 182 of the
227 recommendations. It refused to give response to the 45 recommendations that
are "sensitive." The recommendations included the responsibility to
give "individuals, groups, and organs of society the legitimacy and
recognition to promote human rights, and the expression for opinions and
dissent.” A special U.N. envoy on a mission to Vietnam had accused the authoritarian
government of serious violations of religious freedom. The country's police
harassed and intimidated people he had wanted to meet in the course of his
investigation.
The special rapporteur Heiner Bjele, the United
Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion, acknowledged that the
one-party rule was increasing efforts to improve freedom of religion during his
11-day visit in July 2014. Serious violations of freedom of religion, however,
are a reality in Vietnam. In 1998, after the U.N. religious rapporteur visited
Vietnam, Hanoi said the Communist administration would never again accept any
individuals or organizations coming to visit to visit the country to inquest
the religious freedom situation. This time, they allowed the visit, but intimidated
religious groups and denied the U.N. envoy access to locations he wished to
come.
There is
something like ridicule. At the E.U. Parliament in Strasbourg, the delegation
of the National Assembly of Vietnam urged on its congressmen to come to Vietnam.
“Come to see a flowing Vietnam.” To show compassion and good will, the
Government and the National Assembly of Vietnam openly invited E.U. congressmen
to come to Vietnam in response to their request. The ambassador of Vietnam to
Rome communicated to the Foreign Ministry of Italy the visit of two congressmen.
The itinerary had been set up as planned. Only few hours before the entry, an
official with an air of embarrassment appeared and said to the visitors that
everything had changed.
Religion is seen as a "problem." It is
viewed as a "malicious scheme of imperialism." Religious leaders who
do not conform to Communist ideology and Marxist-Leninist practices are
counter-reactionaries. To make concessions to religion is considered a reluctant
and temporary attitude in face of an unenlightened segment of the population.
Solutions offered to the "problem” include improving anti-religion
propaganda, heightening vigilance against religious activities, and reinforcing
general Marxist-Leninist education.
Peaceful coexistence with a religious organization is entirely dependent
on the non-communist organization's willingness to submit to the leadership of Communist
Party and State. A Catholic priest, who asked anonymity, said that the
Communist Party never yields to a compromise; it imposes submission.
Religious repression against religious groups that
resist State control has ever continued. Hundreds of cases of harassment,
assault, and detention have occurred throughout the country, especially in remote
area. Addressing to U.S. lawmakers at the U.S, congressional hearing, June 17,
2015, the Mennonite pastor Nguyen Manh Hung, whose wife was tortured to death
by police, called on the United States for help. He presented the sufferings
his unofficially registered congregation has endured. Members of the faith were
evicted from their worship place and forced to practice faith in a "cow
shed." Plainclothes policemen and thugs were sent to repress the
worshippers. He urged on U.S. lawmakers to put conversant pressure on the
one-party rule to observe religious freedom.
Calls for Religious Freedom
Bishop
Daniel P. Reilly, Chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference Committee on
International Policy, on September 15, 1994 released a statement of the
Committee on religious freedom in Vietnam. In his pastoral message of the U.S. Bishops
five years earlier, he stressed the need for dialogue between the United State
and Vietnam, paving the way for the lifting of the trade embargo and relief of
religious freedom in Vietnam. Referring to President Clinton’s lifting the
embargo. He expressed inspiration from
the change of policy on the part of the U.S. government” but also wished to
note areas of special concern, notably the matter of religious freedom. The government
applies control over and hostility to religious belief. He wished that, owing
to dialogue, serious restrictions on religious practice would lessen. Expressing
his support for the bishops of Vietnam, he hoped that all closed seminaries
would soon be opened and that the confiscated properties of the Church and religious
orders would be returned. Religious freedom
must remain an essential criterion for improving the relations between the United
States and Vietnam. The statement reflects, in many aspects, the situation of
religious freedom in Vietnam nowadays.
The
full text of the statement is as follows:
“On February third of this year, President Clinton
ended the United States trade embargo against Vietnam, marking another
milestone the long and painful journey from the devastation of war toward
greater contact and mutual understanding. As we welcome this change of policy
on the part of our government, we wish also to note the areas of our special
concern with regard to Vietnam, particularly the matter of religious freedom in
that country and the still unsettled fate of thousands of refugees.
In
our 1989 pastoral statement on relations between the United States and Vietnam,
A Time for Dialogue and Healing, we affirmed the solidarity between the Church
of Vietnam and that of the U.S., emphasized our concern for religious liberty,
and said “it is time to move beyond the legacy of war, to begin to respond to
the pressing needs of those affected by that war, and to address better both
the problems and possibilities of a new relationship between the American and
Vietnamese peoples.” We renewed the appeal made on December 2, 1975, by the
leadership of our Conference and other religious bodies that the trade embargo
be lifted as soon as possible. Now, after nineteen years, a more equitable
relationship may be possible, but serious challenges remain.
The
issues that have governed relations between our two countries over those years
have centered largely on the geopolitical role played by Vietnam, chiefly with
regard to Cambodia and the binding concern of the American people for full
accountability of our POWs and MIAs. The Cold War concerns have faded and most
agree that Vietnam has been generally forthcoming on the POW/MIA issue, with
prospects for still greater cooperation enhanced now binding the sanctions.
Less
attention has been given to the question of the religious rights of the
Vietnamese people and specifically to the ability of the Catholic Church to
function freely. As in several other countries in our time, the Vietnamese
Communist Party’s control over and hostility to religious belief and practice
was exceedingly harsh in the years immediately following the war. By all
accounts, the present situation, while less than satisfactory, may represent
some improvement over the previous period.
At
the end of 1993, a Vatican delegation, headed by Cardinal Roger Etchegary,
representing both the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Cor Unum,
paid an official visit to Vietnam. In that same year, some 21 of the Vietnamese
bishops (most but not all of their Conference) were permitted for the first
time to make their ad limina visit to see the Holy Father. “A dialogue has begun’ “the Pope said to the
bishops in Rome, “which augurs well for the future.”
Talks
between the Holy See and the government continued with a delegation led by
Msgr. Claudio Celli of the Secretariat of State in early 1992 and again just
this year and a visit by Vietnam officials to the Vatican. In 1992, both that
year and the following, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of Vietnam
presented the Prime Minister with petitions forthrightly describing the
still-existing problems experienced by the Church and urging their correction.
The
Holy See has, just this year, named both the new Archbishop of Hanoi and
appointed several other bishops. However, there still remains an unacceptable
degree of government interference in the requirement that all nominations be
approved. As Msgr. Celli said, in reluctantly accepting this requirement, “The
Holy See continues to repeat its desire freely to nominate bishops; moreover,
international documents on religious liberty affirm that every religion has a
right to freely designate its own ministries.”
Several of this arrested clergy have been released,
most notably Fr. Dominic Tran Dinh Thu, founder of the Congregation of Mother
Coredemptrix, and four other members of that congregation, all freed last year.
Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity and our own Catholic Foreign Mission
Society, Maryknoll, have begun to work in Vietnam and, as of this year, five of
the country’s seminaries have, with a variety of limitations, now been able to
reopen.
Yet
serious restrictions on religious practice remain. Our concerns about religious
liturgy begin with our own family of faith, but they do not end there. Recent crackdowns
on religious groups have tended to be directed most directly at members of the
Unified Buddhist Church and against evangelical house church movement and are
just as objectionable as the restrictions imposed on the Catholic Church.
Government efforts to interfere with the internal life of religious bodies are
unacceptable. As regards the Catholic Church, it is not the function of the
state neither to approve or withhold approval for candidates to the priesthood
nor to restrict a bishop’s freedom to name his pastors or transfer priests, nor
should clergy be restricted from travelling freely within their diocese in
carrying out their ministry. It is up to the Church to run its own affairs, to
name bishops, to ordain priests without government interference.
Those
are among the items presented in October 1993 by the bishops of Vietnam in
their petition to the government. They also ask that all the priests and
religious released from the government’s educational camps be allowed to resume
their pastoral duties, that Catholics be free to contribute to the education of
the young by establishing schools, that the Church be free to maintain its own
publications. And although some seminaries have reopened, there are still more
candidates than spaces. Together with the bishops of Vietnam, we too hope that
others of the closed seminaries will soon be opened and that the confiscated
properties of the Church and religious orders will be returned. As the bishops
said, in concluding their list of petitions to the government, “These are only
the basic conditions that are indispensable to the normal functioning of a religion
that will allow the Catholic Church to serve the country and the people
effectively.”
There
are other issues relating to Vietnam that are of great concern to us, perhaps
none more so than the plight of the nearly 55,000 refugees still in camps in
Southeast Asia who have been denied refugee status and may be forced to
return. We are concerned as well with
the unsolved problems affecting American children, the continuing effects (in
both countries) of Agent Orange, and other legacies of that destructive period.
We
pray that, with the growing dialogue of recent years and with the lifting now
of economic sanctions, greater tolerance and understanding will come to
characterize relations between our two countries. We hope in particular that
the Vietnamese authorities will develop a more respectful and tolerant approach
toward the religious institutions of their countries. Religious liberty must
remain an essential criterion for improving relations between the United States
and Vietnam. As advocates of improved relations between our two countries, we
remain committed to defending the rights and dignity of all believers in
Vietnam.
September
15, 1994
Bishop
Daniel P. Reilly, Chairman
Committee
on International Policy
United
States Catholic Conference”
