Vietnam Taking Steps to Clean Up Poor Religious Freedom Record
In recent weeks, Hanoi has made a number of goodwill gestures that some analysts see as an attempt to please the United States.
An impending decision on whether or not to punish Vietnam for its poor record on religious freedom has put the communist country under mounting pressure, sources reported Friday. After classifying Vietnam as a “country of particular concern" last year for violating religious freedoms, Washington must decide by March 15 if Hanoi is to face sanctions.
Although an instruction signed by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in early February called on officials to "ensure that each citizen's freedom of religious and belief practice is observed [and] outlaw attempts to force people to follow a religion or to deny their religion", foreign diplomats warn that even if the central government is serious about bringing change, the reality at the provincial level is less clear.
"The instructions of the government are not always applied at the bottom of the scale," said one foreign observer, as reported by the Agence France-Presse. "And many things are prone to interpretation".
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This view was echoed by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an American consultative body that campaigned for sanctions against Hanoi.
"The new instructions are an attempt by the government of Vietnam to address some of the concerns that, for the first time last fall, placed Vietnam on the State Department's countries of particular concern list," said USCIRF chairman Preeta D. Bansal.
However, the text remains "vague and open to interpretation by local government officials and public security forces."
"Many of last year's most serious religious freedom abuses could still have occurred under these guidelines,” Bansal commented. “We need to wait and see what concrete actions accompany the new instructions."
In addition to ensuring freedom and outlawing forced renunciation of faith, the instruction also signals that religions so far not officially registered could be recognized in the future.
It also gives Protestants the possibility of holding religious ceremonies on their premises provided they have no contact with the rebel United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races (FULRO)—an officially dissolved movement that fought on the side of the Americans during the Vietnam War and against the communist state until the beginning of the 1990s, with the objective of creating an independent state.
"The Protestants who undertake purely religious activities are authorized to organize their masses at home or in suitable and registered places," an official from the Commission for Religious Affairs told AFP.
He said that the Prime Minister’s instruction was "aimed at separating the leaders from the Protestants operating for FULRO and others."
Taken literally, it means the followers of religions without any political ambitions could be allowed to practice their faith.
If implemented, the instructions would be a major reform in a country accused by human rights organizations of persecuting Protestants, bulldozing churches and organizing sessions for the forced renunciation of faith.
"There is a clear will to launch a political message taking into account the date of March 15," said one foreign observer. "The question of the forced renunciation of faith, in particular, was one of the requests by the Americans.
"Now, we have to wait and see if the substance of these nice words is implemented."
In recent weeks, Hanoi has made a number of goodwill gestures that some analysts see as an attempt to please the United States.
Just before the first day of the Lunar New Year, Hanoi released several prominent democracy, free speech, and religious freedom advocates including Catholic priest Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who had been detained since 2001. Ly, a well-known advocate of religious freedom and democracy, was charged with undermining national unity and sentenced in 2001 to 15 years in jail plus five years of house arrest after he submitted written testimony to a USCIRF hearing criticizing the Vietnamese government’s interference with religious belief and practice.
Prior to the incident, Ly was already well known for openly criticizing the Vietnamese government for its poor human rights record.
