{"id":2202,"date":"2014-01-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-buddhist-youth-leader-le-cong-cau-under-house-arrest-in-hue\/"},"modified":"2016-09-09T13:41:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T13:41:24","slug":"vietnam-buddhist-youth-leader-le-cong-cau-under-house-arrest-in-hue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-buddhist-youth-leader-le-cong-cau-under-house-arrest-in-hue\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam: Buddhist youth leader L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u00e2u under house arrest in Hue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bangkok, Paris, 2 January 2014 (FIDH\/VCHR)<\/strong> \u2013 On the morning of January 1, 2014, security police arrested, Vietnamese human rights defender and head of the Buddhist Youth Movement (BYM), L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau at Phu Bai Airport near Hue after he boarded a plane bound for Ho Chi Minh City. FIDH and its member organization the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) express their serious concern over this arrest and detention.<\/p>\n<p>L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau was traveling to Ho Chi Minh City to visit Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) leader and prominent dissident Thich Quang Do. Thich Quang Do is under virtual house arrest at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery. L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau had recently made several trips from Hue to visit the 86-year-old UBCV leader.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u201cArresting L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau for simply attempting to visit to an elderly monk is a serious violation of the right to religious freedom,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> said VCHR President Vo Van Ai. <em><strong>\u201cVietnam will host the UN International Vesak Day (Buddha\u2019s Birth) in May this year and the Vietnamese government claims to respect the rights of Buddhists. It should demonstrate its commitment by immediately releasing L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau and Thich Quang Do from house arrest\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he added.<\/p>\n<p>After L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau\u2019s arrest, security police took him to Truong An district police station in Hue and interrogated him for 13 hours. He has not been provided with any explanation for his arrest or informed of any charges against him. Police also seized his two laptop computers, two flash drives, and two mobile phones as well as various documents concerning the UBCV. Security police stated in their interrogation report that L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau was a member of the UBCV, which is not recognized by the Vietnamese government, and had therefore made \u201cillegal use\u201d of his laptops and flash drives. On the night of January 1, police placed L\u00ea Cong Cau under house arrest at his home in Hue. L\u00ea Cong Cau is deprived of any means of communication, prohibited from receiving visits, and must be ready to report to the police at any time. Some 15 plain-clothed security agents are posted outside his door.<\/p>\n<p>The arrest of L\u00ea Cong Cau contravenes Vietnam\u2019s obligation under international law. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Vietnam is a state party, prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention and states that \u201canyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.\u201d In addition, Article 18 of the ICCPR, to which Vietnam is a state party, recognizes the right to freedom of religion.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u201cThe ongoing repression of human rights defenders shows that Vietnam still has a long way to go in respecting and promoting fundamental human rights.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> said FIDH President Karim Lahidji. <em><strong>\u201cArbitrary arrests and detention targeting independent Buddhist groups and other religious communities must cease and their members must be immediately and unconditionally released,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he urged.<\/p>\n<p>L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau was previously arrested in March 2013 and interrogated for three days because he posted articles on the internet calling on the Vietnamese government to re-establish the UBCV\u2019s legal status and cease repression against UBCV members. Police accused him of \u201cundermining the unity policy\u201d and \u201ccirculating anti-state propaganda\u201d under Articles 87 and 88 of Vietnam\u2019s Criminal Code. Those offences carry prison sentences of up to 15 and 20 years respectively.<\/p>\n<p>BYM, which has about 500,000 members in Vietnam, is an educational organization affiliated to UBCV. Although the UBCV is banned by the communist authorities, BYM has a semi-official status because of its widespread social, humanitarian, and educational activities, which are tolerated by government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Press contacts<\/strong><br \/>\nAudrey Couprie (French, English, Spanish) &#8211; Tel: +33 6 48 05 91 57 (in Paris) \u2013 press@fidh.org <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bangkok, Paris, 2 January 2014 (FIDH\/VCHR) \u2013 On the morning of January 1, 2014, security police arrested, Vietnamese human rights defender and head of the Buddhist Youth Movement (BYM), L\u00ea C\u00f4ng Cau at Phu Bai Airport near Hue after he boarded a plane bound for Ho Chi Minh City. FIDH and its member organization the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-vchr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}