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The Vietnam News

Year :      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

Buddhist leader faces house arrest in Vietnam

The leader of a dissident Buddhist church in Vietnam reportedly faces further hardships after asking for his church to be legalised. The International Buddhist Information Bureau says 86-year-old Thich Huyen Quang, who recently underwent surgery to remove a tumour feared to be cancerous at a hospital in the capital Hanoi, has been unable to leave the city. The Bureau says three senior monks who accompanied Venerable Thich Huyen Quang to Hanoi have been obliged to leave the capital under threat of imminent arrest.

Mr Quang, who has finished convalescence and wishes to return to Quang Ngai, has been unable to leave the city. He has issued a statement asking for his immediate release. According to the Bureau , the patriarch of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam had also asked for the re-establishment of church activities and a guarantee that it would be "independent of all political control". Vietnamese authorities were not immediately available for comment.

ABC Radio Australia News - March 30, 2003.


Buddhist dignitaries consecrated in southern province

SOC TRANG - Twenty monks and nuns residing and studying at pagodas across the southern Buddhism-dominated province of Soc Trang have been consecrated at the Dai Giac (Enlightenment) pagoda in Soc Trang town. Three were consecrated as Most Venerable, 14 as Venerable and three as nuns.

It was only the fourth consecration in the past 25 years by the Viet Nam Buddhist Shangha, which is testament to the monks and nuns' strict compliance with Buddhist teachings, devotion to Buddhist studies and contributions to the religion and the nation. At the ceremony, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front chapter in Soc Trang province extended its congratulations and praises to the consecrated.

Vietnam News Agency - March 29, 2003.