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The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam met Wednesday with the patriarch of an outlawed Vietnamese Buddhist church who is under virtual house arrest, the embassy said.<\/p>\n
Ambassador Raymond Burghardt \u201cmet this morning with Thich Huyen Quang for an hour-long private conversation,\u201d said embassy spokesman Tom Carmichael. He gave no further details.<\/p>\n
Quang, 86, heads the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, officially banned by the government when Hanoi created its own state-sanctioned Buddhist Church of Vietnam in 1981.<\/p>\n
The two sides have repeatedly clashed, with the outlawed church refusing to accept government control.<\/p>\n
Quang lives under heavy guard and constant surveillance at the Nguyen Thieu Monastery near Quy Nhon town in the southern province of Binh Dinh.<\/p>\n
There were signs of a thaw in relations early last year when Quang had an unprecedented meeting with Prime Minister Phan Van Khai to discuss religious freedoms.<\/p>\n
But the situation had deteriorated rapidly by October, with the Communist government launching a crackdown on members of the outlawed group.<\/p>\n
At that time, security police surrounded Quang, his deputy, Thich Quang Do, 74, and several followers as they tried to leave the monastery. Authorities accused them of carrying state agency documents that contained national secrets.<\/p>\n
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said the two leaders had long \u201cabused religion to undermine the whole people\u2019s unity and Buddhism\u201d despite leniency shown by the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cStemming from wrongful political motives and personal ambitions, they had intentionally violated laws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Both men, who have each spent more than 20 years in jail or under house arrest, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
The United States, the European Union and human rights groups have repeatedly accused Vietnam of religious and political repression. Hanoi says it only holds lawbreakers, not political or religious prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam met Wednesday with the patriarch of an outlawed Vietnamese Buddhist church who is under virtual house arrest, the embassy said. Ambassador Raymond Burghardt \u201cmet this morning with Thich Huyen Quang for an hour-long private conversation,\u201d said embassy spokesman Tom Carmichael. He gave no further details. Quang, 86, heads …<\/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":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-press-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","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=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}