Minh City, less than two weeks after the Communist government defended its religious rights record, news reports said Tuesday, August 30.
Eric Dooley, pastor of the interdenominational New Life Fellowship, told supporters police ordered the church to close because it had no permit, said Christian news agency Compass Direct. However the government has allegedly repeatedly ignored New Life’s efforts to obtain permission to worship.
For the past eight months, the congregation has been meeting at the Windsor Plaza Hotel in the An Dong area of Ho Chi Minh City. Made up of people from various nations, the church had been holding three services on Sundays. Dooley stood outside the hotel on Sunday morning, August 28, to inform those showing up that they would not be able to meet, Compass Direct reported.
The news agency quoted Church leaders as saying they hope the action does not represent an effort by the national government to harass the church. It was the latest in a series of actions against active Christians, church sources suggested.
CONFESSION DEMANDED
Earlier this year, also in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese security forces destroyed part of the Vietnam Mennonite Church building and the adjacent home of its imprisoned Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang while his wife and small children watched in agony, witnesses said.
Vietnamese prison authorities have reportedly offered to free the Mennonite pastor if he would confess to a crime for which he is serving a three-year sentence. In March 2004, Rev. Quang confronted two plainclothes policemen who church sources said had harassed some of his workers. He was sentenced November 2004 for "interfering with officers doing their duty."
On August 9 authorities offered him freedom, but he refused to sign a declaration of guilt, Compass Direct reported.
WHITE PAPER
The Vietnamese government has defended its human rights record, saying those who accuse it of suppressing religious and political freedom were merely trying to blacken the country’s image.
Launching the Southeast Asian nation’s first "White Paper on Human Rights", this month Vice Foreign Minister Le Bang described groups such as the US-based Montagnard Foundation, which lobbies for the rights of the mainly Christian ethnic minority tribesmen in the Central Highlands, as a "terrorist organization".
"They are trying all means to protect a handful of people who are using the label of ‘fighting for freedom and human rights’ to promote their personal ambitions and foreign interests in disregard of the voice of the majority," Reuters news agency quoted the paper as saying.
GROUPS ANGRY
The Montagnard Foundation, as well as international civil liberty groups such as Human Rights Watch, have rejected the White Paper and accuse Vietnamese authorities of arbitrary detention and routine mistreatment of Montagnards, including forcing Christians to recant their faith.
"Today in Vietnam over 200 Montagnard, Degar people, are unjustly rotting in Vietnamese prisons," said Montagnard Foundation President Kok Ksor in a statement obtained by BosNewsLife.
"Their alleged crimes are refusing to renounce Christianity, fleeing to Cambodia or participating in peaceful demonstrations. The condition in these prisons is brutal and almost all our people describe torture and harsh treatment. Recently we received information from inside Ba Sao prison that guards would chain our people to latrines to hide them when international inspectors visit the prison," Ksor added.
‘OFFICIAL’ RELIGION
Vietnam says it allows religions, including Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but insists they operate through officially sanctioned institutions.
Raucous protests greeted Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on a visit to US President George W. Bush in Washington in June, with demonstrators waving placards saying: "Vietnam: Stop Religious Freedom Repression."
Le Bang dismissed such critics, saying they "just wrap themselves in the religious cloak to serve the interests of the outside forces. They do not care about the life of religion followers," Reuters reported. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Vietnam).
