{"id":2571,"date":"2015-11-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/radio-free-asia-monk-of-banned-buddhist-church-reaffirms-commitment-to-democracy-in-vietnam\/"},"modified":"2017-07-10T14:25:48","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T14:25:48","slug":"radio-free-asia-monk-of-banned-buddhist-church-reaffirms-commitment-to-democracy-in-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/radio-free-asia-monk-of-banned-buddhist-church-reaffirms-commitment-to-democracy-in-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio Free Asia:<\/i> Monk of Banned Buddhist Church Reaffirms Commitment to Democracy in Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"RFA<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The head of a banned Buddhist church in Vietnam on Thursday expressed gratitude to the international community for advocating for his release from house arrest and reaffirmed his commitment to democracy activism in the one party communist nation.<\/p>\n

Thich Quang Do, the 87-year-old leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), said he was honored by recent calls for U.S. President Barack Obama to push for his freedom when he meets with Vietnamese leaders on the sidelines of two regional meetings in the Philippines and Malaysia this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like [to] send my deep gratitude to all the Nobel peace laureates and scholars who have paid great attention [to my situation],\u201d Do told RFA\u2019s Vietnamese Service in an interview from the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City, where he has been under effective house arrest since 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is for the UBCV, which has been under [government] oppression, and myself that they raise their voices and advocate for [us] \u2026 as we demand freedom from the government, not only for our church, but for all the people of Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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A file photo of Thich Quang Do, patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City. (AFP)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Do said that since the UBCV\u2019s late patriarch Thich Huyen Quang\u2019s death in 2008, he had taken up the call for Vietnam\u2019s communist government to \u201ctransition from authoritarianism to democracy,\u201d and would carry on with his mission, despite his continued house arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly then will our church and I be able to cooperate with the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is our church\u2019s policy. As long as they maintain authoritarianism, we will continue our demand until nobody is left … we want to see the Vietnamese people have democracy and freedom like the Americans and other citizens of the democratic world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open letter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do\u2019s vow to continue his fight for democracy followed an open letter published Tuesday by the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) and several other rights organizations calling on Obama to press Vietnam\u2019s government for the Buddhist leader\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

Obama is scheduled to meet with Vietnamese leaders on the side of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits in the Philippines and Malaysia this week.<\/p>\n

The 90 signatories to the letter included Nobel Peace Prize laureates, religious figures, academics, journalists, legislators, and human rights defenders and democracy activists from around the world.<\/p>\n

In an accompanying statement, VCHR noted that in Vietnam, religious leaders, activists and bloggers face harassment for peacefully expressing their views and lack a legal framework to protect them, at the same time the country seeks to strengthen economic and security ties with the U.S.<\/p>\n

It said the signatories stressed that U.S.-Vietnam relations are only sustainable if they are \u201cfounded on the mutual respect of democratic freedoms and fundamental human rights,\u201d including the freedoms of expression, association, religion or belief and movement.<\/p>\n

The release of Thich Quang Do would be a \u201ctruly historic gesture\u201d that would \u201cgive Vietnam the opportunity to demonstrate its willingness for progress, and reaffirm the United States\u2019 determination to make human rights the cornerstone of this strengthened relationship,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stand with him\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carl Gershman, president of the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a signatory to the letter, told RFA Thursday that as \u201ca great voice for religious liberty,\u201d Do \u201cstands for something not just for Vietnam, but for the whole world, and it’s very important that we stand with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He praised Do\u2019s work on behalf of democracy, human rights and freedom of religions, adding that it is \u201cabsolutely urgent that the president use his visit to Asia to try to seek his release.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[This letter] helps put pressure on the [Vietnamese] government\u2014if they want to be respected in the world, they cannot imprison people like Thich Quang Do\u2014and it also gives hope to someone like him,\u201d Gershman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot either develop economically or have a good relationship with democratic countries if you imprison people like Thich Quang Do\u2014it’s simply inconsistent with those objectives. So if they want to continue along these lines, I think they should not only release him, but they’re also going to have to open up politically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Activist monk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thich Quang Do, a 16-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has spent more than three decades in detention for his peaceful advocacy work.<\/p>\n

He was sent into internal exile in northern Vietnam for 10 years in 1982 for protesting the creation of a state-sponsored Buddhist Church and in 1995 was sentenced to five years in prison for organizing a rescue mission for flood victims in the Mekong Delta.<\/p>\n

Released in 1998 due to international pressure, Do was later placed under house arrest at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery, where his communications are monitored and he is denied freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

Vietnam continues to \u201cseverely restrict independent religious practice, and repress individuals and religious groups it views as challenging its authority,\u201d the congressionally mandated U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedoms (USCIRF) said in an annual report released in April.<\/p>\n

The State Department included Vietnam on its list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) in 2004 but removed it from the blacklist two years later amid improving diplomatic relations, and has since ignored repeated calls from the commission to reinstate the country\u2019s designation.<\/p>\n

Reported by Y Lan for RFA\u2019s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The head of a banned Buddhist church in Vietnam on Thursday expressed gratitude to the international community for advocating for his release from house arrest and reaffirmed his commitment to democracy activism in the one party communist nation. Thich Quang Do, the 87-year-old leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), said …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":28825,"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":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-press-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","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=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}