This article was submitted to
The World of Jin-Gang-Dhyana
by a Tasmanian Buddhist
 
HUW WATKIN and
AGENCIES in Hanoi

          A prominent Buddhist dissident has been arrested just a week before Washington holds hearings into violations of religious freedoms in Vietnam.

          Thich Quang Do, the 73-year-old deputy head of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was detained by authorities in the central province of Quang Ngai on Sunday after visiting the patriarch of an outlawed Buddhist church, according to a Paris-based religious rights lobby group.

          His reported arrest comes amid tension between several independent Buddhist organisations and the communist Government which developed before former US president Bill Clinton's visit to Hanoi in November.

          That tension has flared again ahead of a February 13 congressional hearing on religious freedom in Washington that will consider the issue of religious and other human rights in connection with the ratification of the US-Vietnam trade deal.

          A statement released by the International Buddhist Information Bureau in France said Quang Do was detained by police on Sunday and his whereabouts remained unknown.

          The statement asserted that pagodas of the church in Quang Ngai and the adjacent provinces of Phu Yen and Binh Dinh were surrounded by police in an attempt to deny refuge to the veteran dissident.

          Hanoi's Foreign Ministry Press Centre and provincial authorities declined to comment yesterday on the reported arrest, demanding that all inquires be submitted in writing.

          But the bureau statement said Quang Do was arrested after leading a delegation of church members on a Lunar New Year visit to 82-year-old church patriarch Thich Huyen Quang.

          Bureau director Vo Van Ai accused police of harassment and said they confiscated videos and photographs taken of the patriarch and his deputy during the visit, claiming they were searching for documents that threatened national security.

          "[But] it is an age-old Vietnamese tradition to visit one's elders and pay them respects during the Lunar New Year. It cannot be perceived as a threat to national security," he said.

          "The arrest is not only a grave violation of Thich Quang Do's fundamental rights to freedom of movement, religion and statement, but it is also inconsistent with Vietnamese traditions and culture."

          His arrest follows a dispute between the church and Hanoi during last year's flooding of the Mekong Delta, which saw authorities seize "unauthorised" humanitarian aid being distributed by monks and lay workers.

          Hanoi continues to deny it restricts freedom of religious practice. The latest allegations of heavy-handedness come amid security concerns in the wake of recent armed attacks by overseas-based dissident groups in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia.

          Those attacks appear to have prompted more vigorous official scrutiny of perceived hostile forces, including locally based foreign media organisations who are being subjected to increased surveillance ahead of the Ninth Communist Party Congress scheduled for some time next month.

          That pattern mirrors events in the lead-up to the last party congress in 1996 when Vietnam closed its borders and expelled a number of foreigners for fear that the occasion would be used by dissidents to embarrass the single-party state.

          Meanwhile, state media reported on the weekend that 38 people were to be prosecuted for their involvement in an alleged terrorist plot.

          The Ho Chi Minh City Youth newspaper reported that members of the US-based Free Vietnam movement had conspired to smuggle 17,000 subversive leaflets and 37kg of explosives into Vietnam during an eight-month period to August last year.

          The report said the group was also planning a grenade attack on the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect in southern An Giang province in an attempt to discredit Hanoi as religiously intolerant.

          But a Hoa Hao splinter group has also alleged harassment by Vietnamese security forces, with its US-based leadership late last month releasing the names of 19 members they claim are being held illegally in Vietnamese detention camps.

          VIETNAM Monk still thorn in Hanoi's side after 25-year stand-off

HUW WATKIN

 
          Thich Quang Do was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but few foreigners have met him.

          Authorities have severely restricted access to the ageing Buddhist monk - especially to journalists, human rights workers and even United Nations envoys.

          But the dissident has been a thorn in the side of Vietnam's leadership for decades and his arrest at the weekend is the latest round in a 25-year war of attrition between Hanoi and the rebellious United Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

          Following the north's victory over South Vietnam in 1975, the communists moved to control the numerous religious groups that had played such a prominent role in the politics of post-World War II South Vietnam by placing them under the supervision of the party's Fatherland Front.

          But that was opposed by the head of the church, Thich Huyen Quang, now 82, who, with his protege, rejected attempts to assimilate their organisation into the official Vietnam Buddhist Church.

          Following the umbrella group's establishment in 1981, Huyen Quang was sent off to exile at Nghia Hanh village in central Quang Ngai province, where he has remained under "pagoda arrest" since.

          It was there that Quang Do was apprehended by police on Sunday, the latest in a series of arrests that have resulted in the maverick monk spending close to 20 years in detention since 1975.

          As well as his jailing in 1981, Quang Do also served 3.5 years of a five-year jail sentence imposed in 1995 for setting up an unauthorised charity to help victims of flooding of the Mekong Delta, a charge he narrowly escaped again during last year's flooding when church humanitarian aid was reportedly seized by authorities.

          In March 1999, security forces broke up a meeting between Quang Do and his mentor - the first in 17 years between the two - charging it was illegal. Quang Do was again detained, only to be quietly released some time later. The incident further boosted his reputation with foreign rights organisations.

          But Quang Do is not without his critics, who accuse him of provoking a communist leadership who remain haunted by violent memories of a divided nation.

          Those critics point out that other religious groups - including the Catholic Church - have reached an accommodation with the Communist Party where they can practise their faith openly without fear of intimidation.