{"id":34373,"date":"2016-11-19T10:36:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T10:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/?p=34373"},"modified":"2016-12-16T10:39:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T10:39:37","slug":"vietnam-new-law-contravenes-fundamental-right-freedom-religion-belief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/vietnam-new-law-contravenes-fundamental-right-freedom-religion-belief\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam New Law contravenes the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS, 19 November 2016 (VCHR) \u2013 The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) strongly denounces the adoption of a new Law on Belief and Religion by Vietnam\u2019s 14<sup>th<\/sup> National Assembly on Friday 18 November at the end of its second session. VCHR believes that the law, which replaces the current Ordinance 22 on Belief and Religion and various other decrees and regulations, is deeply flawed. It enables the communist authorities to interfere intrusively in all aspects of religious life and grossly contravenes the rights enshrined in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cThis is the first time Vietnam has adopted a law on religions\u201d<\/em><\/strong> said VCHR President V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i. <strong><em>\u201cBut it has missed a golden opportunity to improve its people\u2019s rights. Instead of adopting legislation to protect and promote the enjoyment of freedom of religion or belief as in most civilized countries, Vietnam is once again using the law to increase state control, criminalize independent religious activities and give the authorities a cloak of legality to continue harassing, arresting and convicting its citizens at will\u201d<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Under the new law, registration remains mandatory, although the process is now accelerated (it will take 5 years instead of 23 years to obtain state recognition), and makes no provisions for religious groups who cannot, or choose not to register with the state, such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. Mandatory registration is a violation of Article 18 of the ICCPR, as UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, stressed after his visit to Vietnam: <strong><em>\u201cthe right to freedom of religion or belief is a universal right which<\/em><\/strong> <strong><em>can never be \u201ccreated\u201d by administrative procedures. Rather, it is the other way around: registration should be an offer by the State but not a compulsory legal requirement\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAdvocates of freedom of religion or belief risk imprisonment under the vaguely-worded \u201cprohibited acts\u201d cited in this law\u201d<\/em> said VCHR President V\u00f5 V\u0103n \u00c1i. He cited the case of <strong>UBCV Patriarch Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9<\/strong>, who is under house arrest at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Saigon after decades of arbitrary detention for his advocacy of religious freedom and human rights. <em>\u201cVietnam acceded to the ICCPR over 30 years ago, but it continues to flagrantly violate its citizens\u2019 rights, in violation of its binding international obligations\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Unusually, whereas most laws come into force some months after their adoption, the Law on Belief and Religion will not come into force until 1<sup>st<\/sup> January 2018.<\/p>\n<p>In October, in an initiative launched by VCHR and Christian Solidarity Worldwide, <a href=\"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/54-religious-organisations-csos-call-vietnam-national-assembly-revise-draft-law-religion-belief\"><strong>54 religious bodies and civil society organizations<\/strong><\/a> sent a letter to National Assembly President <strong>Nguy\u1ec5n Th\u1ecb Kim Ng\u00e2n<\/strong>, calling for an urgent revision of the draft law before it came up for vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS, 19 November 2016 (VCHR) \u2013 The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) strongly denounces the adoption of a new Law on Belief and Religion by Vietnam\u2019s 14th National Assembly on Friday 18 November at the end of its second session. VCHR believes that the law, which replaces the current Ordinance 22 on Belief and &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"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":[137,98,64],"tags":[222,221,223,219,220],"class_list":["post-34373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-latest-posts","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-iccpr","tag-law","tag-law-on-religion","tag-nguyen-thi-kim-ngan","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34373","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\/434"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}