CORRESPONDENCE - 85A COMBINED REPORTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM 2012

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Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and keeping it under permanent surveillance and oppression. In the case of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church, the State disallowed the Orthodox Hoa Hao Buddhist Church, and installed a pro - government Hoa Hao Buddhist Representative Board. As for Khmer -Krom Buddhists, the government dispersed the Khmer -Krom Theravada Buddhist Associations, and forced Khmer - Krom Buddhist monks to join the Patriotic United Buddhist Association. With respect to the Vietnamese Catholic Church, the communists diminish the role of the Vietnam Catholic Conference of Bishops by fostering the Vietnam Committee for Catholic Solidarity. The recruitment, training, ordainment, appointment, and transfer of religious officials all require the sanction in advance of the state. The training programs for seminarians and other grassroots cadres have to be reviewed by the state and include such subjects as Marxist/Leninist ideology, Ho Chi Minh thought, history of the CPV, and the SRV legal system, taught by state instructors. Candidates to high - ranking positions in any religion must be vetted and approved by the state's central level before they can be accepted. Worse still, police agents disguised as "clergymen," particularly Buddhist ones, are also formed by the authorities to secretly work in temples and religious institutions both at home and abroad, in order to rig the religious rank and file. Travel for religious purposes is also restricted. Typical are the cases of Father Pham Trung Thanh, the provincial superior of the Redemptorists in Vietnam, and his head clerk, Father Dinh Huu Thoai. They were stopped at Tan Son Nhut Airport and the Tay ninh frontier post in July 2011. The blockade of Giac Minh temple in Da Nang in Vietnam Human Rights Network * Annual Report 2011 August 2011 was also an unmistakable case of restriction of religious freedom. Except for worshipping, catechism instruction, and clergy training, all other religious activities such as the opening of schools and hospitals, and charities (in response to disasters or social problems) are still restricted. In education, for instance, the various churches can only open kindergartens, but not elementary or secondary schools, colleges or universities (as was the case in South Vietnam before 1975). Thousands of facilities devoted to such activities before 1975 have been confiscated by the authorities and put to other uses for decades, with almost none of them returned. 3. Violent Suppression Together with sophisticated measures of prevention, restriction, and control, the Vietnamese communist government has always been ready to use armed violence to suppress religious organizations when necessary, as a means of advanced warnings or when an event escapes its control. In 2011, the use of violence to suppress religious activities continued throughout the year. Following are some typical cases that attracted great public concerns: - On 3 December 2011, hundreds of "self- motivated" people broke into the Thai Ha church in Hanoi, causing trouble and attacking the priests while a strong force of uniformed police and plainclothesmen stood outside in readiness to protect the troublemakers inside. - From July to December of 2011, a round of arrests targeting catholic youths of the Diocese of Vinh who have supported the Thai Ha Parish resulted in 17 victims altogether. So far they have been held 20