Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 (centre) and Pamela Pontius of the US Consulate (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
On arriving in Th\u00e1i B\u00ecnh, however, Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 soon realized he was under house arrest once again. His nephew, a former Security Police officer, forced Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9\u2019s assistant to return to Saigon and took control of all his communications. When Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 expressed his wish to go home, the \u201cfamily\u201d found endless pretexts to prevent him leaving.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the UBCV\u2019s resourceful network, on 17 November, Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 left the family temple, never to return. Under the pretext of visiting a nearby Buddhist Pagoda, they took him in secret by car back south, staying in Buddhists\u2019 homes and temples on the way. UBCV followers told IBIB that Security Police were tracking them, often arriving at places they had spent the night only hours after they had left. Despite all hardships, however, on 22 November, Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 arrived at T\u1eeb Hi\u1ebfu Pagoda safe and sound.<\/p>\n
Vietnamese Buddhists all over the world are celebrating the return of the UBCV Patriarch, after weeks of concern about his safety and security. Th\u00edch Nguy\u00ean L\u00fd, the Abbot of T\u1eeb Hi\u1ebfu Temple, said that monks, nuns and lay followers had been flocking to the temple to pay their respects. Today, Pamela Pontius, Political Officer at the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, paid a visit to the UBCV Patriarch (see photo above).<\/em><\/p>\nIBIB sincerely thanks the US Embassy and Consulate, as well as all the other diplomatic missions and international organizations who have closely monitored Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9\u2019s situation during these recent weeks, as well as during his long years under house arrest. As a Buddhist monk, he does not celebrate his birthday, but today is nevertheless a day of celebration for all who have followed the itinerary of this spiritual leader, scholar, prominent dissident and exceptional man. —<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS, 28 November 2018 (VCHR – IBIB) \u2013 The International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIB) and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) are happy to announce that the Most Venerable Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9, Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) has returned safely to Saigon after almost two months in northern Vietnam. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":40647,"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":[97,137,113,98,64],"tags":[745,288],"class_list":["post-40643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-ibib","category-latest-posts","category-news","category-press-release","category-vchr","tag-pamela-pontius","tag-ubcv-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40643","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=40643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Th\u00edch](\"http:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-1128a-thichquangdo-pontius.jpg\")