Blacklist Vietnam for abuse of religious freedom
WASHINGTON - A US commission called Wednesday for Vietnam to be reinstated on Washington's blacklist of countries violating religious freedoms, as other Asian countries including China and Indonesia also were sharply criticized for serious abuses.
"We recommend that Vietnam be re-designated as a CPC (country of particular concern) in 2007," the US Commission on International Religious Freedom wrote in its annual report.
It said that since Hanoi was taken off the blacklist in November 2006 and it joined the WTO "positive religious freedom trends have, for the most part stalled" amid a crackdown on human rights activists.
The authoritarian Southeast Asian nation was taken off the US State Department's list of countries of particular concern on the eve of a visit to Hanoi by President George W. Bush.
The commission also recommended that 10 other countries be kept on the list: China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The commission condemned a lack of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, where the government persists in "interfering with private religious practice," and where "all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one form of Sunni Islam" is banned.
The report said that Riyadh continues to finance activities around the world that support religious intolerance, and violence toward non-Muslims and Muslims who are out-of-favor.
China, the commission wrote, engages in serious restrictions, even repression, of religious freedoms, particularly toward Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, Christians and adherents to spiritual practices like Falun Gong.
Abuse of religious freedoms "involve imprisonment, torture, and other forms of ill treatment," the panel wrote.
"Religious freedom conditions deteriorated for communities not affiliated with any of the seven government-approved religious organizations, those considered by the government to be 'cults,' and those closely associated with ethnic minority groups in China."
Myanmar's military regime has supported, allowed or instigated violence against religions minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims, the commission concluded.
Violations of religious freedoms in Indonesia meanwhile, were deemed worrisome enough to warrant its inclusion on a "watchlist" of countries requiring close monitoring.
Although the situation in Indonesia has improved somewhat, the commission expressed concern over "ongoing sectarian violence and the Indonesian government's inability or unwillingness to hold those responsible to account."
The panel also decried "the forcible closures of places of worship belonging to religious minorities, and the growing political power and influence of religious extremists, who harass and sometimes instigate violence against moderate Muslim leaders and members of religious minorities."
Iraq, Afghanistan, Belarus, Egypt, Bangladesh, Cuba and Nigeria also were included on the watchlist this year.
Writing about Vietnam, the commission voiced disappointment at the decision "citing continued arrests and detentions of individuals in part because of their religious activities and continued severe religious freedom restrictions targeting some ethnic minority Protestants and Buddhists."
It recognized there had been positive religious freedom developments by the ruling Communist Party with the release of prominent religious prisoners and the end to enforced renunciations of faith.
But the panel found that such improvements had been "insufficient" and that it was "too soon to determine if the legal protections would be permanent and whether such progress would last beyond Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization."
Agence France Presse - May 3, 2007.
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