27/08/2002 | Religious Freedom in Vietnam: Open Letter to Mr Hartmut Nassauer, President of the European Parliamentary Delegation on the eve of its visit to Vietnam, 9-10 September 2002
President of the European Parliamentary Delegation
for Relations with ASEAN and South-East Asia
Paris, 27th August 2002
Dear Sir,
I am deeply moved to learn that in the coming days you will be leading a European Parliamentary Delegation to Vietnam. Vietnamese people around the world have been looking forward to this visit since July 5th 2001, when the European Parliament passed a Resolution calling for the release of religious prisoners and deciding to send an EP delegation to “visit Vietnam to meet religious leaders of all confessions, especially those who have been imprisoned”.Your visit comes at a crucial time. Repression against all religious denominations is increasing. In the past year alone, Buddhist leaders Thich Huyen Quang, Thich Quang Do and hundreds of followers of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church (UBCV) have been placed under detention in a nation-wide security crack-down; Roman Catholic priest Father Nguyen Van Ly was sentenced to 15 years in prison at an unfair trial; peaceful demonstrations of mainly Protestant Montagnard tribespeople were repressed with unprecedented brutality by military and riot police.
Only recently, a UBCV monk and dissident, Thich Tri Luc, was kidnapped in Cambodia after he fled religious persecution in Vietnam. Thich Tri Luc disappeared on July 25th 2002, shortly after he was granted political asylum by the UN High Commission on Refugees in Phnom Penh. I fear he has been kidnapped by Vietnamese secret police and either forcibly repatriated or subjected to an even worse fate.
It is therefore vital that the EP delegation meets detained religious leaders and dissidents during this trip. I would like to particularly urge you to meet UBCV Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang and his Deputy, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Quang Do, both of whom have spent over 20 years in detention for their nonviolent advocacy of religious freedom, democracy and human rights. Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, 84, is severely ill, and must be urgently transferred to Ho Chi Minh City for much-needed medical care.
I am convinced, however, that without very strong determination from the European side, the Vietnamese authorities will seek pretexts to prevent these meetings taking place. In 1998, for example, the authorities systematically obstructed all such visits by the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance Mr Abdelfattah Amor during his mission to Vietnam.
I therefore urge your delegation to obtain a firm commitment from the Vietnamese government before your departure to Vietnam that these meetings with religious leaders and dissidents will take place. I also request you to strongly press for the release of UBCV Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, Very Venerable Thich Quang Do, Father Nguyen Van Ly, and all detained clergy and followers of the Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, Protestant and other religious confessions during your talks with the Vietnamese leadership. Vietnam should respect religious freedom, and guarantee the right to existence of the banned UBCV and all other non-recognised religious bodies in Vietnam.
Violations of religious freedom and human rights in Vietnam have been roundly condemned by the international community. At the 2002 UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in April, the EU denounced the Vietnamese authorities’ “disregard for the civil and political rights of its citizens and the violation of the freedoms of _expression, assembly and religion”. More recently, in July 2002, the UN Human Rights Committee issued a list of concerns on Vietnam’s violations of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee particularly deplored its harassment and detention of religious leaders, and called on the Communist authorities to lift all “restrictions placed on outside observers wishing to investigate” their plight.
In view of these binding international obligations, and of Article 1 of the EU-Vietnam 1995 Co-operation Agreement on the respect of democratic principles and human rights, Vietnam must guarantee the European Parliamentary Delegation full freedom to meet detained religious leaders and to gather information as it sees fit.
Trusting in your sincere determination to meet detained religious leaders and to resolutely address the extremely grave human rights situation in my country, I will be happy to come to Strasbourg next week to discuss this matter directly with you.
Yours sincerely,
Vo Van Ai
President, Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
Vice-President International Federation of Human Rights (F.I.D.H.)
