FREE VIETNAM ALLIANCE
PRESS RELEASE
Paris, March 19, 2001
In recent weeks, a surge of serious cases of human rights violation and religious oppression has taken place in Vietnam:
- February 4, 2001, Ven. Thich Quang Do, the 73-years-old second highest monk of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, was brutally detained and strip-searched by Public Security cadres when he visited the Church's leader currently in exile in Quang Ngai province. Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang has been placed under internal exile and pagoda-arrest by the government since 1982.
- February 12, 2001, dissidents Ha Si Phu and Mai Thai Linh were officially placed under "administrative detention" by the authorities after months of investigation for baseless charges of treason. For the former, this is his second round of house-arrest without trial since his release from jail in December 1996.
- February 27, 2001, Father Nguyen Van Ly, pastor of the An Truyen Parish, was officially placed under "administrative detention" -- church-arrest without trial. The national and local Media -- from TV, radio, newspapers, to village loudspeakers, controlled exclusively by the government, have continuously distorted Father Ly's effort for religious freedom and slandered his personal life. Other sympathetic priests in the Hue Archdiocese were also harassed repeatedly.
- March 17, 2001, Mr. Le Quang Liem, Chairman of the Central Council of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church, was arrested in Saigon without charges. Afterward, a number of the Church members were brutally beaten when they demonstrated in front of the Public Security station asking for the release of Mr. Le. Outraged by the authorities' behavior, Church member Nguyen thi Thu committed self-immolation in protest on March 19, 2001 in Dong Thap province.
These incidents typify the Vietnamese communist government's new wave of terror on the population in preparation for a number of upcoming development:
1. As the IX Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party is to take place in April 2001, the pre-event roundup and lockup have begun . The Party habitually preempts any signs of protest among the population while its leaders battle lock horns in the battle for power.
2. The authorities also wants to stamp out the spreading demand for human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam. In recent months, representatives of major religions in the country have jointly announced their alliance in a common struggle for the right of their churches to worship freely.
3. The Vietnamese government is also restocking its holdings of political and religious prisoners as bargaining chips for the upcoming debate on the ratification of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement at the US Congress. Some of the prisoners will be released at that time as gestures of goodwill and intention to rectify the human rights condition in Vietnam.
The Free Vietnam Alliance strongly protest the Vietnamese communist government's total disregard of the dignity and the fundamental rights of the Vietnamese people. The Alliance has launched a worldwide campaign to urge governments of the free world to see through the ploys of the Vietnamese government and to stand with the Vietnamese people in their struggle for religious freedom and human rights in Vietnam.