Vietnam
stepping up religious rights abuses, experts say
By Erin Roach
Sep 2, 2010
WASHINGTON
(BP)--Government-perpetrated violence against a Catholic village in Vietnam has
highlighted a series of human rights abuses in the communist nation, and three
U.S. congressmen are calling on the United Nations to intervene.
"A few months ago during a religious funeral procession, Vietnamese authorities
and riot police disrupted that sad and solemn occasion, shooting tear gas and
rubber bullets into the crowd, beating mourners with batons and electric rods,"
Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., said at a hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission in August.
"More than 100 were injured, dozens were arrested and several remain in custody
and have reportedly been severely beaten and tortured. At least two innocent
people have been murdered by the Vietnamese police," Smith said.
The Con Dau tragedy, Smith said, "is unfortunately not an isolated incident."
Property disputes between the government and the Catholic church continue to
lead to harassment, property destruction and violence, Smith said, referring to
a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
"In recent years, the Vietnamese government has stepped up its persecution of
Catholic believers, bulldozing churches, dismantling crucifixes and wreaking
havoc on peaceful prayer vigils," Smith said.
Persecution is not limited to Catholics, though, as Smith had a list of nearly
300 Montagnard political and religious prisoners. In January, the Vietnamese
government sentenced two Montagnard Christians to 9 and 12 years imprisonment
for organizing a house church, and others have been arrested in connection with
house churches, Smith said.
"The arrests were accompanied by beatings and torture by electroshock devices,"
the congressman said. "We must not forget the sufferings of Khmer Krom
Buddhists, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and others.
The said reality is that the Vietnamese government persecutes any religious
group that does not submit to government control."
The violence in the 80-year-old Catholic village of Con Dau in central Vietnam
reportedly stemmed from a government directive for residents to abandon the
village to make way for the construction of a resort.
International Christian Concern, a Washington-based watchdog group, reported
that when Con Dau residents refused to leave, water irrigation was shut off to
their rice fields, stopping the main source of income and food.
In May, police attacked the funeral procession, beating more than 60 people,
including a pregnant woman who was struck in the stomach until she had a
miscarriage, ICC said.
One of the funeral procession leaders later was confronted by police in his
home, where they beat him for about four hours and then released him. He died
the next day, ICC said. Eight people remain in police custody and are awaiting
trial.
"The people of Con Dau are living in desperate fear and confusion," Thang
Nguyen, executive director of an organization representing Con Dau victims, told
ICC. "Hundreds of residents have been fined, and many have escaped to Thailand."
Smith, along with Rep. Joseph Cao, R.-La., and Frank Wolf, R.-Va., introduced a
House resolution in July calling for the United Nations to appoint a special
investigator to probe "ongoing and serious human rights violations in Vietnam."
In August, the Lantos Commission met in emergency session to address the "brutal
murders and systematic treatment of Catholics in Con Dau."
"The Vietnamese government justifies this violence, torture and murder because
the villagers of Con Dau had previously been ordered, some through coercion, to
leave their village, property, church, century-old cemetery, their religious
heritage, and to forgo equitable compensation in order to make way for a new
'green' resort," Smith said at the hearing. "Nothing, however, not even
governmental orders, grant license for government-sanctioned murder and other
human rights abuses."
The U.S. Department of State declined to testify before the Lantos Commission,
and the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam characterized the Con Dau incident as a land
dispute and refused to get involved.
Logan Maurer, a spokesman for International Christian Concern, told Baptist
Press he has publicized about 10 different incidents of persecution in Vietnam
during the past few months.
"In some cases, especially in Southeast Asia, religious persecution becomes a
gray area. We also work extensively in Burma, where often there are mixed
motives for why a particular village is attacked," Maurer said. "Is it because
they're Christian? Well, partially. Is it because they're an ethnic minority?
Partially.
"So I think the same thing happens in Vietnam where you have a whole village
that's Catholic. One hundred percent of it was Catholic," he said of Con Dau.
Maurer explained that local government officials in Vietnam generally align
Christianity with the western world and democracy, which is still seen as an
enemy in Vietnam on a local level.
"As far as the official government Vietnamese position, that's different, but
local government officials do not take kindly to Christians and never have. We
have documented many cases of government officials saying Christianity is the
enemy. So here it's mixed motives as best we can figure out," Maurer said.
"They wanted to build a resort there, and they could have picked a different
village but they chose the one on purpose that was Catholic because it
represents multiple minorities -- minority religion, minority also in terms of
people that can't fight back. If they go seek government help, the government is
not going to help them."
A Christian volunteer who has visited Vietnam five times in the past decade told
Baptist Press the Con Dau incident illustrates the way the Vietnamese government
responds to any kind of dissent.
"In our country, and in modern democracies, there are methods for resolving
disputes with the government, taking them to court, trying to work through the
mediation process," the volunteer, who did not want to be identified, said. "In
Vietnam there is no such thing. It is the government's will or there will be
violence."
Vietnam's constitution includes a provision for religious liberty, but the
volunteer said that only goes as far as the communal will of the people, which
is monopolized by the Communist Party.
"So when the Communist Party says you can't build a church there or you can't
worship this way, those who say, 'Well, I have religious freedom,' are
essentially trumped by the constitution that says it's the will of the people,
not individual liberty that's important," the volunteer said.
The government in Vietnam has made efforts during the past 15 years to open up
the country to economic development, and with that has come an influx of some
western values and a lot of Christians doing work there, the volunteer said.
"I would first caution Christians to still be careful when they're there
working," he said, adding that government officials closely watch Christians who
visit from other countries, and books about Jesus cause trouble.
Secondly, the volunteer warned that all news emerging from Vietnam must be
tested for accuracy on both sides because both those who are persecuting and
those who are sounding the alarm on persecution have their own political goals.
"That being said, I don't doubt that this happened," the volunteer said
regarding Con Dau.
International Christian Concern urges Americans to contact the Vietnamese
Embassy in Washington at 202-861-0737, and the Christian volunteer said people
can contact the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to encourage
changes in Vietnam.
"They can also directly e-mail the ambassador and the consular general in Ho Chi
Minh City and encourage them to push for more reform," he said. "And they can
contact companies that are having products made in Vietnam and encourage the
business leaders to speak out for change in those countries. You go to JC Penney
today in the men's department and pick up almost anything, it's made in Vietnam.
That's the kind of pressure they could put on them."
Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press.
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