Vietnam monk says accused of anti-state activities
HANOI - A
dissident Buddhist monk said on
Saturday he had been summoned by
officials in communist-ruled
Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh
City and accused of anti-state
activities.
Thich Quang Do, who heads the
Institute for the Propagation of the
Dharma under the banned Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam
(UBCV), said 10 local officials,
including a representative of the
state-sanctioned Buddhist church,
had questioned him for two hours on
Friday morning.
``They said I was doing things
illegally against the government...and
that I tried to create division among
religions and tried to destroy the
unity of the people,'' Do told Reuters
by telephone.
He said that officials confronted him
with UBCV documents and a copy
of a letter he had written to European
Union ambassadors in Hanoi that
called for the EU to press for human
rights and religious freedom in
Vietnam.
``They asked me to sign a paper
saying I had acted illegally and that I
would stop, but I refused to sign,''
Do said.
``I said this was not a court...and I
do nothing illegally. I said that if I
have done something illegal, then
please bring me to the court.''
In the years following the end of the
Vietnam War in 1975, the victorious
communists banned the UBCV and
replaced it with the state-sanctioned
Vietnam Buddhist Church.
Do, 72, a former political prisoner
and long-term thorn in the side of the
ruling Communist Party, has spent
much of the last 20 years under
detention or in prison for his activities
seeking the restoration of the UBCV
and religious freedom.
Most recently, he was freed under an
amnesty last September after serving
three-and-a-half years of a five-year
sentence for offences connected with
attempts to send relief supplies to
flood victims in 1994.
Hanoi rejects charges it detains or
jails people for the peaceful
expression of political or religious
views, and vehemently denies
accusations it limits religious
freedoms.
Do also said two other high-ranking
UBCV clergy -- Secretary General
Thich Tue Sy and Thich Duc Nhuan,
counsellor for the Institute for the
Propagation of the Dharma -- had
been summoned for questioning on
Saturday but they had refused to go.
Both monks have previously been
jailed for their religious activities.
Reuters - August 07, 1999.
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