[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 68 (Thursday, May 17, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E848]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNISTS ARREST FATHER NGUYEN VAN, A NEW ROUND OF 
                    RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN VIETNAM

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                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 17, 2001

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, this morning, Vietnamese communist 
authorities arrested a highly respected Catholic priest Father Nguyen 
Van Ly, a former Amnesty International ``prisoner of conscience,'' 
accusing him of fomenting unrest against the government. Father Ly was 
detained in his parish of Phu An, near Hue, under a criminal law for 
failing to obey surveillance rules and agitating followers to cause 
public disorder.
  ``He was arrested for spreading propaganda against the government,'' 
said a spokesman for the secret police of Phu An commune. The 
propaganda charges Ly faces carry penalties of 10 to 12 years in 
prison. A longtime critic of the government, Ly has previously spent 
nearly 10 years in prison.
  On Wednesday, Ly led a religious service of about 150 people in which 
police said he distributed leaflets. The government said the leaflets 
were anti-communist. Ly, 54, had previously been under heavy police 
surveillance and in March was denounced by official media as a 
``traitor'' for urging the United States to link religious freedom to 
ratification of a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam. ``(Ly) 
continued to carry out behavior that affected public security and 
obstructed production and normal life of the people,'' the spokesman 
said.
  Father Ly's arrest came amid growing criticism of Hanoi for 
persecution of religious groups--Christians, Buddhists and, Cao Dai. 
Ly's detention coincided with a report that a dissident Buddhist 
leader, Thich Quang Do, was summoned for questioning in Ho Chi Minh 
City. The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau said 
that 73-year-old Thich Quang Do received a summons demanding he appear 
before a Communist kangaroo court tomorrow to explain ``a number of 
wrongful acts'' he has recently committed.'' The move could be related 
to Do's recent letter to the Vietnamese leadership in which he called 
for the release of another dissident monk, the group said. Do is the 
second-highest monk in the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. 
The movement's patriarch, Thich Huyen Quang, 83, has been imprisoned 
for 19 years.
  Mr. Speaker, the Hanoi regime insists it grants full religious 
freedom to its citizens. This is a blatant lie. Given the simultaneous 
mass persecution of our former allies, the Montagnard tribes people in 
Vietnam's Central Highlands, this body should link an end to religious 
and ethnic persecution to the ratification of the bilateral trade 
agreement between the United States and Vietnam. I also call on the 
United States embassy in Hanoi to aggressively make every possible 
effort to demand the release of Father Ly and an end to religious 
persecution and rampant human rights abuses in Vietnam.

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