Theo
tờ Wall Street Journal tại Asia số mới nhất hôm nay ngày 4 tháng 9, Bộ
Ngọai Giao Hoa Kỳ vào cuối tháng này sẽ đưa ra bản tường trình về tình
trạng tự do tôn giáo quốc tế mà trong đó VN sẽ nằm đầu danh sách, và sẽ
có nguy cơ bị đưa trở lại danh sách Các Quốc Gia Cần Phải Được Quan Tâm
(CPC) vì thành tích đàn áp tôn giáo trong suốt thời gian kể từ sau ngày
được "cởi trói" CPC năm 2006 đến nay. Những đàn áp này không chỉ giới
hạn trên một tôn giáo nào, nhưng từ CG dến PGVNTN, Tin Lành, Hoà Hảo
Cao Đài đều có những tường trình bất lọi cho nhà cầm quyền VN. Nguy cơ
bị giam vào thùng connex GPC của CSVN phen này khó lòng thoát khỏi
Xin đọc thêm chi tiết trên tờ Wall Street Journal
o0o
September 4, 2008
Later this month, the U.S. State Department is due
to release its annual report on international religious freedom. Recent
events in Vietnam suggest the chapter for that country will not, or at
least should not, be positive.
For the last two weeks, several hundred Catholics
from Hanoi's Thai Ha parish have been protesting for the return of
parish property first seized by the Communists in the 1960s. The parish
needs to build a new church to accommodate its swelling membership,
Father Vu Khoi Phung told us by telephone. Several parishoners
reportedly have been beaten by police while participating in peaceful
prayer vigils. This is part of a developing pattern of protests, and
then state suppression, by Catholics seeking return of
long-ago-expropriated church lands.
Catholics are not the only believers who face
problems with the Communist Party state. Last week, the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom -- an independent commission within
the White House -- released its latest report on Vietnam. The
commission documents a range of abuses, from attacks against the
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam to bans on indigenous Vietnamese
religions such as Hoa Hao and Cao Dai. In some provinces, local
officials bar Protestant children from high schools, citing old
communist laws excluding children of religious families from school.
Believers of many kinds are still sometimes forced to publicly renounce
their faith, even though Hanoi had promised to end this practice.
Given this pattern of behavior, the State
Department may want to put Vietnam back on its list of "Countries of
Particular Concern" for violations of religious freedom. When the U.S.
first put Vietnam on the list in 2004, it had an immediate effect.
Hanoi was so embarrassed that it released many religious "prisoners of
concern" and said it would allow more sects to register as official
organizations. As a reward, Vietnam was removed from the list just
before President Bush traveled to Hanoi for an Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation summit in 2006. Since then, State has argued that
repression in Vietnam is mainly secular and that believers are jailed
for political activism rather than for their religious beliefs.
Hanoi has made some progress on religious freedom,
especially in reaching a deal with the Vatican under which the Catholic
Church secured greater freedom to appoint bishops and priests. But such
advances are now stalling. Recent events -- both the treatment of
religious land protesters and the cases documented by the commission --
suggest there's still good reason to be "particularly concerned" about
religious freedom in Vietnam.
The Wall Street Journal