STATEMENT BY VIETNAMESE
RELIGIOUS AND HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
ON PREMIER PHAN VAN KHAI’S VISIT TO THE
USA
Vietnamese Communist
Prime Minister Phan Văn Khải is going to visit the
United States late
this month, marking the first visit by a Vietnamese communist head of
government to this country. Considering the importance of this event, the
undersigned Vietnamese religious and human rights groups unanimously make
the following statement:
-
Ever since the Vietnamese Communists imposed their totalitarian rule on
Vietnam, especially following their invasion of South Vietnam in 1975,
they have carried out a strict policy of systematic oppression within the
framework of a dictatorship, aiming at destroying all basic human rights,
particularly the Vietnamese people’s religious freedom;
-
The Vietnamese communist authorities have enforced sophisticated and
atrocious measures against religions, including:
-
Detention, house arrest, or elimination of prominent religious
leaders;
-
Restriction or prohibition of the recruitment, training, and
appointment of the clergy;
-
Confiscation of faith-based properties;
-
Disbanding of religious organizations and maximum restriction
of religious activities such as, worship, pastoral services, and circulation
of religious reading materials; and
-
Intervention into churches’ affairs through state-controlled
churches or creation of division within each religion and among different
denominations.
The religious and
human rights organizations named below, therefore, solemnly:
1.
Protest against the Vietnamese communist religious
suppression, and
2.
Urge President George W. Bush and the US Congress to set human
rights issues, especially the Vietnamese people’s freedom of professing and
practicing their religions, as a precondition in their negotiations with
Vietnam.
Made on June 11, 2005
Representatives of
Involved Organizations:
BẢN LÊN
TIẾNG CỦA CÁC ĐOÀN THỂ TÔN GIÁO VÀ NHÂN QUYỀN VIỆT
