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

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[Year 2001]

Foreign ministry spokeman rejects remarks about religious suppression in Vietnam HANOI - Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh today, April 13, rejected allegations by the so-called Geneva-based Viet Nam Human Rights Committee about Viet Nam's "legalisation" of the "systematic suppression of religions". The allegations were a "deliberate distortion" and what the committee had been attempting was useless, the spokeswoman said. Thanh's statement was made in reply to a question raised by Ha Noi-based AFP correspondent on Viet Nam's reaction to the committee's remarks. She said the rights to belief and religious or non-religious practice for Vietnamese citizens had been stipulated clearly in Viet Nam's laws and had been guaranteed ever since. Over the past 20 years, the number of Catholics had nearly doubled, while the number of new or upgraded churches, pagodas and shrines had kept increasing. She said that in Viet Nam there were about 14,000 Buddhist pagodas; 6,000 Catholic churches; 500 Protestant churches; 1,000 Cao Dai churches; 200 churches of the Hoa Hao sect; 89 mosques and tens of thousands of temples and shrines. Thanh added that these numbers had kept rising as religious sects opened more schools of their own to train their clergy and sent more of their followers overseas for further training. She said Christmas celebrations and annual pilgrimages to the Huong Buddhist Pagoda were joined by tens of thousands of Catholic and Buddhist followers, and that the La Vang Catholic festival, organised in 1998 and 1999, had been attended by thousands of Catholic followers. Thanh said such a statistic made a nonsense of the Viet Nam Human Rights Committee's remarks. The committee continued pursuing a useless task of making deliberate distortions against Viet Nam, she said. Responding to a question raised by the South China Morning Post about Viet Nam's limiting the number of entries into the country ahead of the Viet Nam Communist Party Congress next week, Thanh said nothing had changed concerning the procedures for visa applications to Viet Nam. She reiterated that procedures for entering into and departing from Viet Nam were being conducted normally in accordance with Viet Nam's laws. Vietnam News Agency - April 13, 2001.

Religious sect pledges support for national unity HANOI - The Cao Dai Chieu Minh sect has pledged to contribute to consolidating the national unity bloc and to the national construction and defence. It has also strongly condemned those people who had abused religion to work against the nation's interests. This was at the sect's congress for the 2001-2005 term in Tan Phu commune, Chau Thanh A district, southern Can Tho province, on April 5 and 6 with the participation of 400 delegates of the sect and the Cao Dai church. Present at the congress were representatives of the Party Central Committee's Mass Mobilisation Commission, the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, Party organisations, local authorities, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and mass organisations of Can Tho and other provinces having Cao Dai Chieu Minh followers as well as other Cao Dai sects and other religions. The congress reviewed the sect's work and achievements in the past five years (1995-2000). The followers and dignitaries of the sect gained good results in preserving moral values. They strictly observed the law, developed the religion in conformity with the Party and State's policy and actively took part in the poverty reduction programme and other humanitarian activities. The congress passed a charter and a religious practice programme for the term. The charter says religious followers are part of the national community and bound together by the destiny of the homeland. Nhân Dân - April 13, 2001.