[ad_1]
Virtually one 12 months after the Vietnamese authorities obtained a United Nations communication concerning rights violations towards an ethnic minority group from the Central Highlands, Hanoi issued a letter of reply saying the ethnic group doesn’t exist.
On Sept. 6, 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and three Particular Rapporteurs despatched the communique to the Vietnamese authorities, which mentioned the authorities’ suppression on Y Cung Niê, Y Thịnh Niê and Y Don Niê, who belong to the Montagnard indigenous group.
The Montagnards are a broad grouping of 30 totally different Central Highlands tribes who’ve clashed, generally violently, with the Vietnamese authorities over a wide range of points, together with land rights and spiritual freedom.
The three males named within the communication had despatched paperwork requesting authorities to offer them with steering on how their spiritual minority teams might register for collective spiritual follow in compliance with the legislation.
As a substitute of offering responses, native police in late Could 2022 arrested the three individuals, one after one other, to interrogate them. They have been arrested for extra questioning on June 2, 2022, and threatened with heavy fines or doable imprisonment in the event that they persevered in assembly spiritual teams not authorized by the federal government, the communication stated.
Y Thinh Niê was advised by law enforcement officials that the request for steering was illegal as a result of the Montagnard Christians had been reporting violations of non secular freedom to the worldwide group by way of reactionary organizations, it stated.
Moreover, the three have been arrested and fined for ceremonies they performed on the UN Normal Meeting-designated Worldwide Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based mostly on Faith or Perception on Aug. 22, 2021, the communication alleged.
‘Not acknowledged’
In its letter of reply, the Vietnamese authorities stated “there aren’t any indigenous individuals, nor do there exist the so-called ‘indigenous Montagnard’” in the neighborhood of 54 ethnic teams in Vietnam.
“In Vietnam, nobody is arbitrarily detained or punished for exercising respectable freedoms, together with freedom of perception and faith,” stated the letter.
In line with the Vietnamese authorities, Y Cung Niê, Y Thinh Niê, Y Don Niê are people with sophisticated actions associated to the FULRO group.
The United Entrance for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, or FULRO, based within the Nineteen Fifties, was a resistance military that fought on the facet of United States and South Vietnamese forces throughout the Vietnam Warfare earlier than formally disbanding within the Nineties.
Vietnam’s authorities describes the group as benefiting from ethnic and spiritual points to threaten nationwide safety, incite riots, secession, and self-rule.
“Within the strategy of residing within the locality, the above three people have typically taken benefit of themselves as ethnic minority individuals to offer false data, fabricate false accusations towards the federal government and native police power of non secular and ethnic oppression; contacted organizations overseas that lack goodwill in the direction of Vietnam to propagate false data, slandered Vietnam of human rights violations, and created inaccurate details about the human rights scenario in Vietnam,” the letter stated.
Hanoi additionally stated that these three people have been fined for breaking the legislation, not associated to the truth that they submitted functions to the federal government asking for steering on registration of non secular actions and “Worldwide Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based mostly on Faith or Perception.”
Aga, a Central Highlands pastor who fled Vietnam to hunt political asylum within the U.S. and is now a everlasting resident, advised RFA that native authorities in Dak Lak and different provinces within the Central Highlands typically attempt to discover methods to power impartial Protestant teams to affix spiritual organizations acknowledged by the state.
Those that refuse are harassed and threatened to be imprisoned by the police, he stated.
Recalcitrant response
The Vietnamese authorities’s response was typical dismissal of rights violation allegations, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, advised RFA.
“There are severe, ongoing violations of freedom of faith and perception in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, however the authorities is in complete denial mode, rejecting allegations of rights violations after which proscribing entry for the worldwide group to these areas to disclaim impartial observers the chance to analyze,” he stated.
In line with Robertson, clear proof of the spiritual persecution within the Central Highlands and several other different locations in Vietnam is how the federal government went overboard to surveille, harass, interrogate and arrest Montagnard teams for merely daring to rejoice the “Worldwide Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based mostly on Faith or Perception”
He stated that the Vietnamese authorities at all times claims that issues are accomplished in accordance with Vietnamese legislation. Nevertheless, the truth is Vietnam’s legal guidelines on spiritual affairs fall far in need of worldwide human rights requirements, and “the safety forces deal with many Montagnard communities as potential nationwide safety threats and enemies.”
Vietnam is included within the checklist of nations having no freedom of faith in keeping with the U.S. State Division’s 2022 annual human rights report. In late November 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken positioned Vietnam on the US’ Particular Watch Checklist for violating or tolerating severe violations of non secular freedom.
Over the previous few years, the US Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom has repeatedly requested the Biden Administration to incorporate Vietnam within the Nation of Explicit Concern checklist for its systematic violations of non secular freedom.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong.
Pictures in folder
ENG_VTN_Montagnard_08092023
Montagnards stroll out of a forest 70 km (43 miles) northeast of Ban Lung, situated in Cambodia’s northeastern province of Ratanakiri, July 22, 2004. They’d fled Vietnam because of spiritual persecution. Credit score: Adrees Latif/Reuters
[ad_2]
Source link