HANOI, Vietnam (AP, March 25, 99) -- An elderly Buddhist monk who is
one of Vietnam's most prominent
dissidents has been arrested by police and his whereabouts are unknown,
a human rights group said Thursday.
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry, however, said it had no knowledge of Thich Quang Do's arrest.
The report comes the same week that Vietnam was criticized for suppressing religious freedoms by a U.N. human rights report.
Do, 70, is secretary general of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, which is not legally recognized by the government and has been the target of repression and harassment for more than a decade.
Do has spent most of the last 20 years in detention or under house arrest because of his opposition to the official state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Church.
The report that he was arrested came in a faxed statement from the France-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, a group which has long championed the cause of the Unified Buddhist Church. It could not be independently verified.
It said Do was arrested by security police Wednesday in the central province of Quang Ngai.
"He has not been seen since then and his current whereabouts are unknown," said the statement, faxed to The Associated Press. The statement said Do suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure.
The statement quoted the church officials as saying Do was arrested after going to Quang Ngai province to see the church's patriarch, Thich Huyen Quang, whom he had heard was seriously ill.
The two men along with a third monk were detained for questioning at Quang Phuoc temple on Monday and later freed, the statement said. But on Tuesday afternoon, it claimed, Do was taken from the temple by security police who said they were taking him back to Ho Chi Minh City.
"To our knowledge, there is no such arrest of Mr. Thich Quang Do," the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Do was arrested in January 1995 and imprisoned in August of that year for condemning the arrests of five other people on charges they took part in a food distribution program without government permission. He was released in September 1998.