face sanctions despite Prime Minister Pham Van Khai’s plans to ease restrictions on Protestant "house churches" in the restive Central Highlands and northwest provinces, BosNewsLife learned Thursday, February 17.
The nine-member Commission, which advises the White House and Congress, said it "remains concerned" that Vietnam’s government instructions "only affect one segment of the Vietnamese population," and that they remain open for wide interpretation.
Under a new decree, previously persecuted "house churches" will be able to gather openly if they revoke all ties to groups that Hanoi accuses of supporting anti-government rallies, including a guerrilla group that fought alongside the U.S. during the Vietnam war.
The measures effect local Christians known as Montagnards, who will be allowed "normal religious activities at home or at suitable places in their villages", if they end their support for the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO), the prime minister told state run media recently.
His instructions also "outlaw" forced renunciation of faith efforts by government officials, the U.S. Commission said.
INSTRUCTIONS "VAGUE"
"But the instructions remain qualified and vague and open to interpretation by local government officials and public security forces," cautioned Commission Chair Preeta D. Bansal. "Many of last year’s most serious religious freedom abuses could still have occurred under these guidelines. We need to wait and see what concrete actions accompany the new instructions."
The government’s pronouncement came a week after prominent democracy, free speech, and religious freedom advocates, Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, Nguyen Dan Que, Nguyen Dinh Huy, and Thich Thien Minh were released from prison in a Tet New Year amnesty with eight thousand other prisoners, including other Christians and political dissidents.
Last month, the government also gave "written guarantees" that returning Montagnard refugees "will not be punished, discriminated against and/or prosecuted for their illegal departure," the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said.
WESTERN CONCERNS
Bansal stressed the new policy was an attempt by the Vietnamese government to address Western concerns over its religious and human rights record, after the U.S. State Department for the first time placed Vietnam on its list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC).
"Vietnam is in the midst of consultations with the U.S. over its designation [as a CPC country] under the International Religious Freedom Act for egregious abuses of religious freedom," the Commission said, but stressed the time for negotiations is limited. "The consultation period ends on March 15, 2005…If Vietnam does not respond to U.S. government concerns, the CPC designation carries statutory penalties."
Under the International Religious Freedom Act, which became law in 1998, the president can
take actions against governments designated as CPCs, ranging from diplomatic to economic
sanctions.
CHRISTIANS IN PRISON
Christian human rights watchdogs have suggested that with Christians still in prisons across the country, there is no reason to cancel Vietnam’s CPC status. Open Doors, which supports persecuted Christians, estimates that 400 churches have been closed by the Communist Party since 2002 and that at least over 50 church leaders ‘disappeared’ in Dak Lak province and the Central Highlands.
In addition "two Christians died after being beaten by the police and being forced to sign a document renouncing their faith," said Open Doors and other well informed human rights activists.
Analysts say the Communist authorities remain concerned about especially the growing number of evangelical Christians, although they currently comprise only 1% of the population, according to estimates. Seven out of ten Vietnamese people are Buddhists, although ancestor worship and animism permeate Vietnamese life and society, Open Doors’ research shows.
(By: Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife, with BosNewsLife News Center and reports from Washington and Hanoi)
