PUBLIC OPINION—INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT (II)

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”