Winds of change 01/01/2008
Nguyen Van Dai
With one of south-east Asia’s fastest growing economies, Vietnam seems set to join the world’s economic fast lane. But how far does this progress extend to human rights and religious liberty?
Vietnam’s recent history has seen considerable progress. In 2006 it hosted the prestigious APEC summit, welcomed US President, George W. Bush on a state visit and was also taken off the US religious freedom blacklist for ‘countries of particular concern’. Then on 11 January 2007, in one of the major watersheds of its recent history, Vietnam was admitted to the World Trade Organisation.
All this was seen as tacit acknowledgment of genuine progress in human rights, and particularly religious freedom. But a year on, are the lives of Vietnamese Christians really any better?
Ask three local Christians at random how free they are to practise their faith, and it is likely you will hear at least three different answers. While new denominations, including some Baptists and Mennonites, are being registered under complex procedures; many house church congregations in the northern highlands are not having their applications for registration accepted. Others in Lai Chau province are even being prevented from allowing under-18s to attend church meetings.
Some areas have seen major leaps forward in freedom for Christians to attend churches openly; yet many Christians in the north are being denied ID cards unless they renounce their faith – or if ID cards are granted, they specify ‘none’ under the ‘religion’ category and can be used to stop Christians from attending churches.
Nowadays few are being detained obviously because of their Christian faith, yet Roman Catholic Father Nguyen Van Ly and Protestant lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan are serving harsh penalties because their Christian faith propelled them to speak up for others.
It could be said that all the positive changes are just window dressing. At the same time as Vietnam was showing a new face to the world in 2006, a training document was leaked, mandating local officials in the north to ‘mobilise’ new Christians to ‘return to their traditional beliefs’ – training which has been put into practice in 2007. That said, it seems that as long as being a Christian is a simple matter of belief and peaceful church attendance, things are gradually improving.
For some ethnic minorities, though, like the Hmong, acceptance has never been easy – they still suffer ostracism from the Vietnam War in which some fought on the side of the Americans. As tens of thousands have become Protestant Christians in recent years, a religion associated with America, they are enshrouded in suspicions of sedition.
For Father Ly and Christian lawyers Dai and Nhan, it is also not that simple. All three have been standing up for human rights and pressing for change towards democracy – an outworking of their Christian convictions, but beyond the pale for the Vietnamese government.
The real change needed is a change in heart – seeing not just that Christians are not necessarily threats to public order, but that they can be good citizens bringing a genuinely positive influence on society.
What you can do
Pray
Please pray for Vietnamese Christians using CSW’s Prayer Diary.
Protest
Please continue to protest on behalf of Christian human rights defenders in prison, through CSW’s Cut the Chains campaign. You can also write to your MEP, highlighting current developments and urging that the EU continues to closely monitor the religious freedom situation and raise it with the Vietnamese government.
Provide
Please use CSW’s Connect & Encourage resource to send letters and cards of encouragement to prisoners in Vietnam.