~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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

A small gain for Vietnam christians

Vietnam's religious officials, in a small advance for religious freedom, invited five leaders of unrecognized Protestant house-church organizations and missionary groups for meetings in Hanoi on March 5. The religious leaders met with representatives of the Fatherland Front--an umbrella group that mobilizes youth, women's, artistic and religious groups to support government policies--and a unit of the Ministry of Public Security that monitors religious affairs, according to a United States-based Christian news service.

The religious leaders, who were quoted by the Compass agency as saying said they had had "frank and sincere discussions in an atmosphere of mutual respect," represent some 1,400 illegal house congregations and hundreds of missionaries. The meeting took place at a time of intense harassment of Christians from hill tribes in the Central Highlands, according to Compass.

The Far Eastern Economic Review - May 1st, 2003.