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”

Public Opinion--International Support

Public Opinion-International Support

By Van Nguyen




The United Nations, in 1986, created the position of a special rapporteur on religious intolerance within the U.N. Commission of Human Rights. Since 1994, the special rapporteur had led religious inquests in a number of countries, namely, China, Pakistan, Greece, Soudan, India, Australia, Germany, and the United States. A visit to Vietnam of the special rapporteur had been initiated since 1995. An inquest on the situation of human rights in Vietnam was addressed at the t54th session of the Commission for Human Rights in Geneva in April 1998, On September 8 of the same year. The Honorable Abdelfattah Amor was to come to Hanoi, Hue, Saigon, Tay Ninh, and a number of other locations where he could meet officials of the State and the representatives of diverse religious communities. The special rapporteur, nevertheless, was prevented from meeting with the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. Other religious dignitaries were estranged from the envoy. Among them were Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang who was then under house surveillance in Quang Ngai, the Venerable Thich Tri Sieu and the Venerable Thich Tue Sy, both of whom were former professors at Van Hanh University, Saigon, and the Venerable Thich Tri Tuu, Superior Monk at Thien Mu Pagoda in Hue. Included in the list were the Catholic priests of the Congregation of the Maria Coredemptrix including the Congregation Superior-general Tran Dinh Thu, Fr. Pham Minh Chi, and other religious, namely, Br. Nguyen Viet Huan, Br. Mai Duc Chuong, and Br. Nguyen Van Thin.  On his return, the envoy of the United Nations publicly complained about the complications caused by the Vietnamese authorities on his trip for finding facts.

Until December 2, 1999, could David Young, the deputy-secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, come to visit Patriarch Thicn Huyen Quang, who was under house surveillance at Hoi Nghia Pagoda, Quang Ngai Province. The American diplomat was the first foreign visitor to the ailing patriarch since his forced isolation from his followers since 1982. International humanitarian organizations including the Red Cross and foreign journalists had not been authorized to come to visit him. During conversation, the Patriarch of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church had opportunity to express his views, reportedly underlining the distinctive character pertaining to the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church from that of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam created by and administered under the patronage of the Fatherland Front. The former Church, in his opinions, is founded on the tradition of twenty centuries of Buddhism and the unity all Vietnamese branches of Buddhism cherish. The Church operates from the base, which is the population of Vietnam. Its hierarchy is founded on this base. The Buddhist Church of Vietnam, on the contrary, was founded in 1981, at the initiative of the State. It is devoid of legitimacy, historicity, and popularity. Established essentially by such a hierarchical superstructure, the population has no representation in it.  Therefore, the popular representation is null in it. He stressed, in particular, that the Church does not have to interfere in the affairs of the State, the State should then take care of not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Church.     

On November 19, 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton, during his visit tour in the country, had a meeting with the Archbishop of Saigon Pham Minh Man at the Saigon City Hall. This was a heartening moment for rights advocates. The President assured during conversation that the liberty of beliefs is indissolubly linked to certain rights necessarily accompanying the market economy. Religious liberty even seems to have predominated on the other aspects. In his speech before the students at the University of Hanoi, the President ascertained, in addition, that the liaison of economic rights between civil rights is absolute.    

At the end of February 2002, a delegation of the U.S. Commission of Religious Freedom, at the invitation of the government of Vietban, came to the country to make an investigation on the situation of religious freedom. The chief of the delegation, Firus Kazemzaden and his colleagues, had difficulties in making contacts with leaders of the Churches of the country, Catholicism, the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao Buddhism. They could only contact with the Churches’ representatives in an indirect and non-official manner. Authorities sought all means to control their itinerary displacements. The chief of the delegation added that he admired the courage of the personalities thus contacted. He said that there is no religious freedom in Vietnam since the authorities want to strictly control all religions and religious organizations. As for those people they cannot control, they interdict them.

On July 5, 2002, the European Parliament adopted a motion calling for liberation of all religious prisoners in Vietnam and designated a group of six deputies to come to Vietnam to meet the leaders of all religions, particularly those who were in the prison. The delegation would, in addition, participate in the general Assembly of the inter-parliamentary organization of the ASEAN that started on September 9, 2002 in Hanoi. The delegation arrived in Hanoi on September 7, 2002, The delegation was not authorized to meet the religious dignitaries who were in prison or placed in residence surveillance, nevertheless. Authorities also refused to give it permission to meet a number of religious dissidents and prisoners assigned to residence surveillance in diverse locations.

 Hanoi was under international pressure due to non-cooperation on rights issues. Until May 2005, regardless of official protests from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Vietnam, the U.S. State Department maintained Vietnam on the list of the countries of particular concern (CPC). Rights advocates were awed into silence at the exclusion of Vietnam from the list of the countries of particular concerns of the U.S. State Department. International concerns over the rights situation were increasingly manifest, however.    

After his vast tour to Vietnam, December.1-3, 2005, U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith published in a report his observations and remarks on the rights situation in the country. As regards religious freedom, he remunerated, in particular, the excruciating pressure under which the believer serves his faith, being forced to renounce his faith, for instance. The Ordinance on the Beliefs and Religions is promulgated, but the application of the law is not observed. Persecutions continue. Vietnam remains a country that is worrisome in the domain of religious liberty.    

Amnesty International, on May 23, 2006, published an annual report (2005) report on the situation of human rights in the world. Vietnam is included in the list of the countries of particular considerations. The report shows great concern over the situation of the Montagnards in the Central Highlands and the infringements on religious freedom. It noted that during the year 2005, at least 45 Montagards were condemned by the local People’s Court. These condemnations had been motivated by the participation of the accused in the movements of protests from 2001 to 2004.  Violations of religious freedom were pervasive.  Christians were forced to renounce their faith. Many of them had to evade their homeland and sought refuge in Cambodia.

On March 16, 2007, security officers intercepted Theresa Jebsen of the

Oslo-based Radio Foundation as she came to the monastery Thanh Minh Thien Vien to present to the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do the prestigious 2006 Thorolf Radio Memorial Award. Thersa Jebsen was detained, and the Norwegian journalist Tom Rune Orsel was questioned for two hours. Previously, he Foundation Chairman Ame Lynngard had sent a letter to the Vietnamese authorities seeking permission for its citizens to visit Vietnam to present the award to the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, but the demand was denied. The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do reluctantly grieved at the improper conduct of the authorities as regards the authority’s attitude towards foreign visitors. He said:  “One could then imagine how 80 million people live under this regime. They are living in a prison, in a large concentration camp,”

During conversation with the U.S. Foreign Affairs delegation led by the Undersecretary in charge of East Asia and the Pacific Eric John on April 9, 2007 at Thanh Minh Monastery, the Most Venerable Thich Quangg Do expressed his hopes as regards the policy on religion in Vietnam of the U.S. administration. He particularly weighed in with remarks the statement by President Georges W. Bush on the presidential inaugural ceremony of the second term according to which the United State would readily stand on the side of the oppressed under a totalitarian regime. Nevertheless, on his visit to Vietnam to attend the APEC Conference in November 2006, the President said nothing about democracy and human rights. Not only the Vietnamese, but also the oppressed peoples in other countries such as North Korea and Myanmar expressed hopelessness as regards U.S. rights pokily. 

On December 24, 2008; two E.U. congressmen were invited to Vietnam to observe the situation of religions but were asked to cancel their visit for security reason at Bangkok, Thailand, by the host country. One of these two dignitaries, Marco Pannelia, refuted the excuse. The invited observer believed that even Hanoi said that it had not known the reason for the obstruction, it could not deny that the Embassy of Italy in Hanoi had communicated to the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Italy that the Vietnamese administration was very concerned about this visit and awaited the visitors at the Vietnam National Assembly. A certain travel agency of Vietnam also prevented them to enter Vietnam. There must be a problem between them. For whatever the reason it might be, the visitors could not conceive why they were treated by the host country in such a manner. 

The congressmen intended to see the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do. Previously, the European politician Olivier Dupuis had come to Vietnam and participated in a nonviolent demonstration in Vietnam to support the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. He supported the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do for his cause and bravery. He had nominated the venerable monk to the candidacy to the award of the Sakharov Awards of Europe. The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do is highly worthy of it.  Nevertheless, Hanoi had fear of it. The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, who is well known for bravery and integrity. Hanoi does not want anyone to see him. Those mandarins in Hanoi fear foreign politicians ‘visits.

Marco Panella had hopes he would surely have opportunity to see the highest dignitary of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. The meeting has link to the legacy of civilization of Asia: religious Freedom. It was believed he was vaguely aware of a historical incident in October 2008 when an uprising of the Catholics would likely break out in Vietnam, which incident was little spoken of by the media. As for the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, he had had for many years knowledge about its struggle for rights from Vo Van Ai of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Paris, France, Elsewhere in the world, Buddhism is facing tyranny. In China, with a trillion and three hundred million people, the authorities in Beijing nevertheless fear the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhists, and not the ten million Tibetan Buddhists that fear Beijing.

In October 2010, police brutality and religious intolerance came as U.S. Secretary State Hilary Clinton prepared her visit to Hanoi for regional summit. Authorities demolished all the houses in Con Dau Parish, Da Nang for the eco-tourism project. Many parishioners who claimed for rights were convicted or alleged offences. The U.S. Commission on International religious Freedom (USCIRF) called for their unconditional release founded on evidence of the authorities’ intimidation, harassment, and restriction, and torture in detention. Scott Filipse, deputy Director of the USCIRF advocated that the U.S. should consider putting conditions on U.S.-Vietnam economic relationship so that progress is not paid for by the blood and tears of Vietnamese citizens. The commission urged the State Secretary to raise the case when she talked with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi. In April 2011, the commission, again, asked President Barrak Obama‘s administration to reinstate Vietnam on a blacklist of religious freedom violators. The Vietnamese government severely restricts religious practice and brutally represses rights advocates and suppresses the voices that challenge its authority.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE (II)

Religious Intolerance

By Van Nguyen




The Reverend Chan Tin, on the occasion of the visit to Vietnam of the U.S. Congress International Commissioning for Religious Freedom in mid-April 2004, expressed his views in an analysis on the situation of religious freedom of the Roman Cath+lic Church. The priest specified, in particular, the violations of human tights and religious freedom committed by the communist regime. 

A Half Brazen-face of the Truth

 When it is accused by many countries of the world of its violations of human rights, the Vietnamese regime never ceases to protest, using as a pretext that there no violation whatsoever of these rights, Still, the rights of all citizens in the country are always guaranteed in this country. The reality, however, shows that the acts of the regime are entirely contrary to what it says. It even has no hesitation to flout the natural and fundamental rights of the citizen. People realize that this regime to tell lies without shame. It takes the international community for a band of children, credulous people that can be led in a boat easily and the countries that accuse it for an assembly of slanderers. In any case, amazing lies are not wholly useless. It is necessary for foreign diplomats to manifest some reserves on these accusations, lest the benefit of doubt lend the regime an advantage in one way or another.  

In reality, it is observed that a fairly large number of citizens in the country, ‘those people who only express peacefully their divergent political views are oppressed, persecuted, imprisoned or executed. The cases of Fr. Ngyuyen Van Ly, of Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, and those of Nguyen Hong Son, Nguyen Vu Binh, and many other personalities, are the proofs that are more than substantial than anything to verify in these instances. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese authorities impertinently and brazenly continue to deny the verity. They proclaim that the persons who are the objects of repression, of imprisonment, and of execution are all the violators of the law, although no proof is produced in a convincing and clear manner. In many cases, the opponents are condemned in catimini for insignificant motives m a hasty process and devoid of necessary conditions to guarantee the minimum of justice.

In face of these accusations, the Vietnamese regime flatly denies the exactions on grounds that international agencies are the victims of unfounded information. But, when foreign delegations ask to come to investigate on the spot with their own eyes what is precisely existent, the regime flatly refuses to accommodate the access to the locations where the exactions in question take place or the occasions for the meetings with the persons suspected of being imprisoned for political divergence of views. It is argued about the fact that whether or not the security of the delegations is guaranteed and that, they insist, if ever, on securing this guarantee, they do it at risk and in peril.  With hindrances and threats barely veiled as such, it is necessary enough to stop the investigation.  

I suggested to the investigators not to be naïve and not to let themselves to be manipulated by the Vietnamese government to the extent to see their investigations fail to proceed, even to avail themselves of manipulation. If they want their investigations to come to concrete results, they have to call for at all costs the right to come the places where they want to come and to see the persons they want to meet, if the Vietnamese authorities refuse to satisfy the demands. That simply means that the accusations leveled against them by international opinion are founded on evidences. If this regime is truly innocent of these accusations, does it have anything to hide and to avert? The investigators should then go ahead with their job and prove its innocence!    

A Subtle Policy of Anti-religious Repression

On the plane of religious freedom, the Vietnamese government invariably proclaims that in the Constitution as well as in the realities of the social life, the freedom of religion is always respected, shamelessly ignoring the facts that prove the contrary. The rights to freedoms of the citizens are stammered out flatly and inarguably. One can mention, as a case in point, the campaigns of repression against the Christians of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands and the provinces of Northwest (Son La and Ha Giang), and, most recently the destruction of chapels of the Evangelical Churches in Saigon and surrounding suburbs.  

In its repressive policy against the religion, the communist power is founded on an extremely clever and subtle juridical apparatus, rich in laws, decrees, and ordinances. It operates in association with diverse articles of the laws and decrees which, if taken apart, they do not bear anything like repressive. The repression comes in play when these different articles are maliciously associated to stand against a given situation. For example, a certain article stipulates that the believers can only practice their cult in the designated authorized places (churches, pagodas, and temples). Bit, at the same time, the regulation governing the construction of real estate’s decrees that all projects for construction, in order to be realized, are subject to prior authorization from the State. Reading these articles or decrees independently or separately the one from the other one does not find a priori any kind of anti-religious intention. However, to interdict the believer to practice their cult, it is enough for the authority not to deliver the permit for construction. Then, due to lack of the authorized places of cult, the believers are resigned to practice their cult at home or in some other places. That is the reason for the practice of cult becomes illegal and is exposed ipso facto to the lightning of the law. And, the authorities only use it as a pretext for repression, to beat, arrest, and imprisons those believers who they charge with crimes of infringements on the law while they themselves are the true violators. Under these conditions, even the believers who desire to practice their religion legally are caught in a dilemma and do not know what to do!        

Another example, in one part, such decree proclaims that the citizen is free to teach his religion, in another, such decree demands that to become a priest or a pastor, there must be authorization from the government. One should not think that, even in the most justified cases, the authorization is easily accorded. That is why to face their normal needs; the Churches have to appeal to a number of priests or pastors ordained in hiding (ministers of the cult ordained without authorization from or knowledge of the State) for help. From this fact, the priests or pastors ordained in hiding, like in other situations, the simple believers who teach the religion take risk to be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and executed as we have witnessed in the past.      

With such a judiciary system that is contradictory and inexplicable at will, the authorities can arrest or imprison the believer any time for infraction on the law and not because of their religious practices.

In fact, the use of this judiciary apparatus, for the less intricate measure to oppress the religion, is only applied to the Churches that refuse the submission to the control of the State. Those that accept to be strictly controlled by the State enjoy a relative freedom. In this way, for the practice of cult at home, for instance, the local authorities can blind their eyes on certain practices of the believers of the Churches that accept the control of the State. On the contrary, if these believers belonging to independent Churches that refuse such a control, they risk becoming the targets for harassment such as acts of merciless repression by the local authorities.  Isn’t it the ultimate goal of the State to force all the Churches to submit themselves to its control!  In a way, an observer from the exterior can only find certain cases where there is an appearance of freedom. He may not pay attention to those where every freedom is totally absent. To prove that the freedom of religion exists in Vietnam, it is enough for the authorities to exhibit the cases of the first category and bypass in silence those in the second category.   

The Religious Policy of the State vs. the Roman Catholic Church

Concerning the Roman Catholic Church, a Church which is bestowed on an international statuary and structured organization, the regime has to show a certain respect while doubling subtlety in its repressive strategy. In appearance, it always takes good care to fancy itself in the international community that this Church is entitled to the liberty of religion. But, at the same time, it takes advantage of the fact that the Catholic hierarchy rarely raises protests against its measures of restriction of freedoms, of repression, and of expropriation of properties of the Church, pretending to be the counterpart of the Church to confer it titles of certain facilities. To pay the price of these facilities, the Church, in a way, is to be resigned to accept the interference of the State in its internal affairs.

Actually, there are patent proofs that show the direct interference of the authorities in the internal affairs of the Church. The formation, the nomination, and the displacement of the personnel in the interior the Church are subject to prior approval by the State. Thus, in the long run, the persons who work in and for the Church will only be the people in the regime’s pay ready to submit themselves to its exigencies. Without taking into consideration the prejudices that they thus cause to the Church. Good people and competent persons of whom the Church is in need fear for bearing witness of its authenticity, to pursue and its holy development is categorically standing astride from the leading roles in the bosom of the Church. This situation will lead without doubt to a serious degradation of the quality of the Church, a Church that will be able to continue to survive but a falsified form. And, in the end, the Church will progressively become a tractable instrument in the hands of the regime. Once the time comes, the regime will come up with a full freedom for the Church, even being free then, the Church will only have the capacity to execute the orders of the Party and the State.     

     

This policy is really subtle and pernicious. Being free at least, from coping with some energy intervention or demonstration, it inevitably brings in, in the long run, unpredictable results. The Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, then, might no longer be an authentic Church as the one exists in other free countries and integrates in the proper nature that should be its own in all times.

Presently, the curriculum for the formation of priests in the seminaries always comprises the mandatory study of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, a philosophy normally reserved for members of the Communist Party, who only represent 2% of the population. Isn’t it the manifest will of the Party and the State to form the instrument for their service in the ranks of the future priests and seminarians?

The interference of the State in the affairs of the Church can only be realized owing to the persistent and comprehensible silence, and, above all, some timid protest on the part of the hierarchy and the clergy.in numerous cases of abuse of power of the authorities, such as abuses of conscience, for instance:

-when the authorities abusively appropriate the lands and institutions of the Church (such as the monastery of Thien An in Hue, the sanctuary of La Vang in Hue, the presbytery in Hanoi, the Pontifical University in Da Lat, and so on),

-when the authorities impose the study of Marxism-Leninism in the seminaries,

-when our nation and our people are due to bear serious prejudices as a consequence of recent dramatic events such as the cession in cacatimini a part of the historic national territory to China.

              

All these facts show the prophetic character of the mission of the Church seriously is at fault within the hierarchy and the clergy of our country, as a consequence of the policy of interference and manipulation of the State. Precisely, it is due to the loss of the intrinsic quality of the Church that the exterior manifestations of a superficial religious freedom appear to dissimulate serious damages the Church has to suffer within its body. In reality we can see crowded churches on Sundays and solemn processions on the fete-days of Palm Sunday and Christmas Eve. This spectacle authorizes people a short time to enjoy “the freedom” from which the Roman Catholic Church benefits. On the contrary, those who give careful thoughts find in this more of a reason to be pessimist and worried about the upcoming days of the Church. Because, in the end, if the Church has lost in intrinsic nature, what would it be the cause the existence and freedom of the Church are still meant to serve?