World Evangelical Alliance RLC Reveals Religious Freedom Crisis in Vietnam

According to a global network that represents more than 335 million Christians from over 121 nations and over 100 international organisations, the official opposition in ideology to religion in Vietnam remains very much systematic.

Recently a document on international religious freedom was presented by the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). In the report it stated that the terminology and tone of many government documents on religion indicated a "continuing suspicion of religion, especially Christianity, as being unpatriotic."

The RLC stated in its Geneva 2005 report, "The State acts as an official arbiter of defining ‘good, legitimate religion.’ Vietnam’s leaders still do not understand the ‘freedom of religion’ its constitution proclaims."

Just last year there were several policy changes announced by the Vietnamese government on the issue of religion, and in June 2004 the Ordinance on Religion was published.

Many religious leaders were said to have opposed this publication according to the RLC, and complained that it only granted the freedom to ask permission for a myriad of large and small religious matters, and that the government were at absolutely no obligation to respond.

The RLC have reported that many of the house churches in Vietnam are still unable to register. A recent Decree (22) requires religious organisations to be in operation in Vietnam for 20 years prior to the issuance of the Ordinance on Religion in order to be eligible to register.

This Decree has essentially barred the house churches from applying, as the house church movement in Vietnam and the large movement to Christian faith by minorities in the Northwest provinces date from 1988 or 1989. So a huge segment of Protestant believers in Vietnam are still not even eligible to apply for legal status.

Reports from the region by the RLC, US-based Human Rights Watch among others, have indicated that the Christian communities and churches continue to suffer harassment and persecution.

In 2002 and 2003 the Vietnamese government forced hundreds of churches to disband, and since then only 36 of these have been officially recognised by the authorities. Although the government continues to claim that the situation in the region is normal now, the RLC have stated that the situation is far from being like the government is portraying.

Vietnam has also received much negative publicity over its terrible handling of the "Mennonite Six" - six Vietnamese Mennonite church workers arrested in 2004 and jointly tried and convicted on 12th November 2004 for "resisting persons doing official duty".

The General Secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang received a three years sentence and the others lesser ones. An appeal to the People’s Supreme Court was granted for the Rev. Quang and Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach on 2nd February 2005, but was cancelled at the last moment without explanation.

The hearing was later rescheduled for 12th April, but according to the Mennonite World Conference, the People’s Supreme Court of Vietnam upheld the prison sentences of the two Mennonite Church workers.

Meanwhile, sources say the appeal of the one-year sentence of Le Thi Hong Lien, the sole woman among six Mennonite church workers, cannot proceed after she reportedly suffered a mental breakdown because of the treatment she had received in prison.

Lien, a zealous church worker who specialised in teaching the Bible to small children, was reportedly transferred last month to the hospital in Bien Hoa, fifty kilometres north-east of Ho Chi Minh City. Prior to her transfer, Lien reportedly suffered in prison from severe mental illness for many months.