{"id":2580,"date":"2015-12-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/police-harass-and-intercept-ubcv-monks-and-lay-followers-to-prevent-celebrations-of-buddhisms-memorial-day-in-hue\/"},"modified":"2016-09-09T13:39:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T13:39:34","slug":"police-harass-and-intercept-ubcv-monks-and-lay-followers-to-prevent-celebrations-of-buddhisms-memorial-day-in-hue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/police-harass-and-intercept-ubcv-monks-and-lay-followers-to-prevent-celebrations-of-buddhisms-memorial-day-in-hue\/","title":{"rendered":"Police harass and intercept UBCV monks and lay-followers to prevent celebrations of Buddhism\u2019s Memorial Day in Hue"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS, 5.12.2015 (VCHR) \u2013 Buddhists in the central city of Hue sent an urgent report to Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/strong> (VCHR) today that Police and security forces are intercepting, harassing and intimidating monks, nuns and lay-followers of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) to prevent them from organizing Memorial Day commemoration at the Long Quang Pagoda<\/strong>, seat of the UBVCs Executive Institute Vi\u1ec7n H\u00f3a \u0110\u1ea1o<\/em> in Hue on Friday, 4 December 2015.<\/p>\n

Memorial Day is one of the key events in the Vietnamese Buddhist calendar, held to honour and commemorate the founding masters of Buddhism in Vietnam, and all those who have sacrificed their lives to contribute to its development over the past 2,000 years. This is the second year running that Police have cracked down on this traditional celebration in Hue. In his report, L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u1ea7u<\/strong>, Secretary-general of Vi\u1ec7n H\u00f3a \u0110\u1ea1o and head of the Buddhist Youth Movement cites the following incidents:<\/p>\n

– In the city of Danang<\/strong>, for several days, local authorities, Security Police, Religious officials and civil defence agents (plain-clothed security agents) have repeatedly called on Gi\u00e1c Minh Pagoda, residence of Venerable Th\u00edch Thanh Quang<\/strong>, Acting President of Vi\u1ec7n H\u00f3a \u0110\u1ea1o, threatening him with reprisals if he travels to Hu\u1ebf for the event. On 2 December, an official order was issued banning Thich Thanh Quang from leaving Giac Minh Pagoda. Several hundred Security Police and civil defence agents have surrounded the Pagoda, keeping surveillance and blocking approach roads and alleys with police vans. Gi\u00e1c Minh Pagoda has been systematically prevented from holding any major Buddhist ceremony over the past 5 years.<\/p>\n

– In Thua Thi\u00ean Hu\u1ebf<\/strong>, leaders of the UBCVs Buddhist Youth Movement (Gia \u0111\u00ecnh Ph\u1eadt t\u1eed Vi\u1ec7t Nam)<\/em> in the districts of Ph\u00fa Vang, Ph\u00fa L\u1ecdc, Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110i\u1ec1n were summoned for Police interrogations and forbidden to attend Memorial Day celebrations. In Ph\u00fa Vang, Police ordered leaders of the \u201cGolden Oriole\u201d class (young Buddhists from 6\u201313 years old) to tell parents to strictly prohibit their children from taking part in the event.<\/p>\n

– L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u1ea7u<\/strong> reported that this is the second time in three months that Vietnam has banned Buddhist childrens religious activities. In September, Police intercepted children on their way to a Youth Camp at Long Quang Pagoda in Hue during the Vu Lan festival. To avoid being caught, many children hid behind sandbanks along Highway No. 1 waiting to catch buses to Hue. When Security Police chased after them, they took refuge in local peoples homes but were finally caught and sent back home, with threats that they would get bad marks or be expelled from school. Despite police harassment, some 300 \u201cGolden Orioles\u201d and their teachers managed to overcome obstacles and attend the camp, which is one of the major gatherings of the youth movement.<\/p>\n

– Since 1st December, Police and local officials have systematically visited all local sections of the UBCV and its Youth movement, as well as the homes of local Buddhists in the Hue area, forbidding them from attending Memorial Day on the pretext that Long Quang Pagoda contained \u201cbad, reactionary elements\u201d acting under the name of the UBCV to \u201csabotage and oppose the Socialist government\u201d. In H\u01b0\u01a1ng Th\u1ee7y village, Buddhist youth leader Nguy\u1ec5n T\u1ea5t Tr\u1ef1c<\/strong> was so exasperated by continuous visits, threats and harassments by local Police that he hung a sign on his door \u201cNo more visits received\u201d<\/strong><\/em>. He is currently under strict Police surveillance.<\/p>\n

– L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u1ea7u<\/strong> has been subjected to harassments, threats and Police surveillance concerning Memorial Day for over a month. On 14 and 26 November, municipal police publicly warned him that they would ban the UBCVs Memorial Day gathering, and threatened to use violence. They accused the UBCV of using this occasion to hold a national UBCV Congress. On 1st December, they formally placed L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u1ea7u under house arrest until 4th December, when the commemoration was over. Security Police were immediately posted outside his home, preventing him from leaving the premises and intercepting any visitors.<\/p>\n

– L\u00ea C\u00f4ng C\u1ea7u also reported that Police had evacuated all outside personnel from the Long Quang Pagoda (e.g. workers building a new kitchen) during the days of 3 and 4 December.<\/p>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

\nDespite all these threats and obstacles, Buddhist monks, nuns and followers, as well as leaders of the Buddhist Youth Movement from southern and Central Vietnam (Saigon, An Giang, Binh Thuan, Dong Nai, Khanh Hoa provinces) were able to escape Police interception and attend the Memorial Day ceremonies at the Long Quang Pagoda in Hue.<\/p>\n

The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/strong> (VCHR) strongly condemns this new crack-down on the UBCV and its educational youth movement. Although Police claim it is an \u201cillegal organization\u201d<\/em>, the UBCV has never been formally banned by the communist authorities. Its members are therefore legitimately entitled to pursue peaceful religious activities as guaranteed by the Vietnamese Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis crack-down on a peaceful Buddhist gathering shows Vietnams deceptive policies on freedom of religion or belief\u201d<\/strong><\/em>, said Vo Van Ai, VCHR President. \u201cVietnam is currently debating a law on \u201cBelief and Religion\u201d at the National Assembly which, if adopted as such, will increase government control over religious activities and criminalize the activities of independent, non-registered communities such as the UBCV\u201d.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

VCHR calls on the international community to press Vietnam to uphold its binding obligations as a state party to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in particular, to raise these cases with Vietnam during bilateral human rights dialogues and other diplomatic exchanges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS, 5.12.2015 (VCHR) \u2013 Buddhists in the central city of Hue sent an urgent report to Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) today that Police and security forces are intercepting, harassing and intimidating monks, nuns and lay-followers of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) to prevent them from organizing Memorial Day commemoration at the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":28801,"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-2580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-vchr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2580","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=2580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}