Socialist Republic of Vietnam

HA NOI - Viet Nam’s Buddhists have emphatically rejected the US House of Representatives resolution on religious freedom in Viet Nam, passed on November 19.

Speaking at a meeting at the Ba Da pagoda in Ha Noi last Saturday, a leading Buddhist Sangha official slammed the resolution as a "distortion of the real situation" in the country.

The Most Venerable Thich Thanh Chinh, Deputy Secretary of the Sangha Council of the Viet Nam Buddhist Sangha (VBS), also warned it was "detrimental to efforts to consolidate and expand friendly ties between Viet Nam and the US."

Chinh, who is also head of the Executive Council of the Ha Noi Buddhist Church, called the resolution "erroneous" and a "blatant interference" in the internal affairs of Viet Nam and the Viet Nam Buddhist Sangha.

Since 1981 – when it was founded – the VBS has been the sole organisation of the Vietnamese Buddhists and all moves aimed at dividing the Sangha would run counter to the Vietnamese Buddhists’ interests and aspirations, he said. He lauded the Government’s policy of ensuring people’s freedom of belief or non-belief in religions, assuring that conducive conditions had been created for people to follow their religious beliefs and live a good secular or religious life.

The number of Buddhist monks and nuns in the country had risen to over 38,860 and that of pagodas and temples to more than 14,400. The VBS ran three institutes, five colleges and 30 schools with a total annual enrolment of some 14,000 students.

The Buddhist community was an integral part of the ‘great national unity’ bloc entitled to enjoy the right of religious freedom enshrined in the country’s constitution and ensured by law, the monk said. - VNS