US diplomat meets detained Vietnam Buddhisthead
HANOI - A U.S. diplomat has met the
patriarch of Vietnam's outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of
Vietnam (UBCV), the first Westerner to visit the detained monk
in 17 years, the religious organisation said on Wednesday.
The Hanoi-based diplomat met Thich Huyen Quang for three
hours on December 2 at a pagoda in central Quang Ngai
province where the aged monk has been under detention since
1982, the UBCV's information bureau in Paris said in a
statement.
It was unclear if the diplomat had official permission from Hanoi
to visit Quang, who has long been a thorn in the side of the
communist authorities.
A U.S. embassy official confirmed the meeting took place, but
gave no details. Vietnamese officials were not available to
comment, but Hanoi has previously refused to allow diplomats
or journalists to meet Quang.
Abdelfattah Amor, the U.N. special rapporteur for religious
intolerance, has said he was also prevented from travelling to
meet Quang during a trip to Vietnam last year.
He later slammed Vietnam for failing to allow basic religious
freedoms, a charge Hanoi rejected.
The statement from the Paris-based International Buddhist
Information Bureau said a security official from a police post
opposite Quang's pagoda was present throughout the meeting
with the U.S. diplomat, but did not intervene.
According to excerpts of the meeting contained in the statement,
Quang called on Hanoi to cease discrimination against those with
different beliefs and opinions.
``Otherwise there can be no development or progress in
Vietnam,'' said Quang, who was detained in 1982 because of his
religious activities.
One UBCV source said Vietnam had offered to take Quang
overseas, but that he had refused. ``They are very keen to get
him out of the country,'' the source said.
Hanoi routinely denies it jails people for the peaceful expression
of political or religious views.
Vietnamese of different religions say that while the overall
climate for worship has eased in the country, restrictions remain
on formal religious hierarchies.
Most Vietnamese are nominally Buddhist.
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 (VBC).
Quang, who is in his early 80s but suffers from poor health,
helped lead protests in the former South Vietnam against the
U.S.-backed Saigon regime during the war.
He told the U.S. diplomat the VBC was a political vehicle.
``The VBC is nothing but a top-level leadership imposed by the
political powers,'' Quang said.
Reuters - December 15, 1999.
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