By late September 2009, typhoon Ketsana, one of the most destructive storms in years, had crossed it deadly path in Central Vietnam, swallowing homes and crops into its mud stream and leaving as many as 163 deaths. Now the Catholics of dioceses of Hue and Vinh have to face another round of disaster, this time a more challenging one, since it comes from the local government.
News from Loan Ly, the battered parish from Hue diocese of Vietnam has indicated a new twist for the worse on Oct 16, 2009, when the local government mobilized its forces to seize the rest of the parish's premises after they had successfully forced the young catechumens out of their catechism classrooms in a bloody clash between the police and parishioners on Sept. 19.
Having lost the catechism classrooms, children have to study in open-air classes on the land behind the church. But the local government of Lang Co town does not leave them alone. On Oct 16, Huynh Duc Hai, vice chairman of The People's Committee of the town, ordered hundreds of police to attack a group of parishioners who were cleaning up the ground for the next Sunday catechism classes.
Police, led by captain Nguyen Tien Dung, who has been known to apply extreme measures to overwhelm his unarmed victims during the parishioners clashes with the government, had roamed streets yelling in vulgar, derogatory language in front of the church to intimidate the parishioners before attacking them and erected fences and a new board claiming the land did not belong to the church of Loan Ly but to Phan Van Tung, a sitting local government official.
To make sure Loan Ly parishioners’ call for help could not reach the outside world, phone service and internet access in the area had been cut-off prior to the invasion, and activities of all priests in the neighboring areas had been under heavy surveillance by local authority.
The land behind the Loan Ly Church, in fact, was donated to the parish by President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1956. Many believe Loan Ly parishioners are being slowly driven out of their places for religious activities just because the parish's location has been so luring to the savvy land developers who are doing everything to own a piece of land along the exotic coastal line of Central Vietnam.
Yet, despite all the ruthless effort the government, parishioners of Loan Ly still manage to survive rounds of attacks and abuse without backing down on their goal to both protect their rightful ownership of the property, and in the meantime maintain a normal religious life as much as they can. Parishioners wait no time to keep going all catechism classes for their young ones right behind the church on regular schedule even without a room. Having to deal with so many natural disasters have taught them on how to survive under extreme conditions so well that even the children don't seem to mind sitting on the sand while attending classes.
In the neighboring diocese of Vinh, the Catholics of Bau Sen have been put on high alert again after the storm. Local government now is back on its plan to remove the Virgin Mary statue placed by parishioners in April last year on a boulder in the parish cemetery across the road from Bau Sen church. On Sept. 21, 2008 the People's Committee of Bo Trach county, Quang Binh province had issued Decision 3150 QĐ – CC, coercing the parish to remove the statue within 5 days from the date of Decision's issuance, which was also intensified by means of intimidating tactics and threats being placed upon Bo Trach priests and parishioners.
The infamous decision had shocked the Catholic community throughout the region since the statue has been placed on a religious premise. A wave of protest had taken placed with tremendous support from fellow Christians at home and abroad, which somewhat helped to deter the government's action to a lesser degree until typhoon Ketsana has put a stop to the effort.
But when the storm was over, on Oct 16, the government again mobilized heavy equipment and bulldozers to resume their removal task. An anonymous governmental source from the Fatherland Front has disclosed that the provincial government had approved a budget of 1.2 billion Dong (18,000 Dong = 1 USD) in order to complete the removing process. The budget is considered a sizable amount for a poor province like Quang Binh to spend.
As of now, the fate of the statue, so dear to the hearts and minds of thousands of poor yet devout Catholics in an area ravaged by Ketsana typhoon, remains uncertain, as their contact to the outside has been brutally cut off.
Father John Nguyen Van Huu, pastor of Bau Sen had publicly pleaded with Catholics all over the world and people of goodwill to help them keep this sacred religious symbol in its intended place of dedication, and most of all, to protect their right to practice religion in such a way the Vietnam constitution has clearly written and, and as Mrs. Elaine Pearson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division has recently put it: "Vietnam's respect for human rights and religious freedom has sharply deteriorated since the US removed it from its blacklist and Vietnam was accepted into the World Trade Organization...The Vietnamese government should stop treating freedom of religion as a privilege to be granted by the government rather than an inalienable right."
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| Parshioners cleaning up the ground before the attack on Oct. 16 |
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| They worked under constant monitor and threats of police and thugs |
Having lost the catechism classrooms, children have to study in open-air classes on the land behind the church. But the local government of Lang Co town does not leave them alone. On Oct 16, Huynh Duc Hai, vice chairman of The People's Committee of the town, ordered hundreds of police to attack a group of parishioners who were cleaning up the ground for the next Sunday catechism classes.
Police, led by captain Nguyen Tien Dung, who has been known to apply extreme measures to overwhelm his unarmed victims during the parishioners clashes with the government, had roamed streets yelling in vulgar, derogatory language in front of the church to intimidate the parishioners before attacking them and erected fences and a new board claiming the land did not belong to the church of Loan Ly but to Phan Van Tung, a sitting local government official.
To make sure Loan Ly parishioners’ call for help could not reach the outside world, phone service and internet access in the area had been cut-off prior to the invasion, and activities of all priests in the neighboring areas had been under heavy surveillance by local authority.
The land behind the Loan Ly Church, in fact, was donated to the parish by President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1956. Many believe Loan Ly parishioners are being slowly driven out of their places for religious activities just because the parish's location has been so luring to the savvy land developers who are doing everything to own a piece of land along the exotic coastal line of Central Vietnam.
Yet, despite all the ruthless effort the government, parishioners of Loan Ly still manage to survive rounds of attacks and abuse without backing down on their goal to both protect their rightful ownership of the property, and in the meantime maintain a normal religious life as much as they can. Parishioners wait no time to keep going all catechism classes for their young ones right behind the church on regular schedule even without a room. Having to deal with so many natural disasters have taught them on how to survive under extreme conditions so well that even the children don't seem to mind sitting on the sand while attending classes.
In the neighboring diocese of Vinh, the Catholics of Bau Sen have been put on high alert again after the storm. Local government now is back on its plan to remove the Virgin Mary statue placed by parishioners in April last year on a boulder in the parish cemetery across the road from Bau Sen church. On Sept. 21, 2008 the People's Committee of Bo Trach county, Quang Binh province had issued Decision 3150 QĐ – CC, coercing the parish to remove the statue within 5 days from the date of Decision's issuance, which was also intensified by means of intimidating tactics and threats being placed upon Bo Trach priests and parishioners.
The infamous decision had shocked the Catholic community throughout the region since the statue has been placed on a religious premise. A wave of protest had taken placed with tremendous support from fellow Christians at home and abroad, which somewhat helped to deter the government's action to a lesser degree until typhoon Ketsana has put a stop to the effort.
But when the storm was over, on Oct 16, the government again mobilized heavy equipment and bulldozers to resume their removal task. An anonymous governmental source from the Fatherland Front has disclosed that the provincial government had approved a budget of 1.2 billion Dong (18,000 Dong = 1 USD) in order to complete the removing process. The budget is considered a sizable amount for a poor province like Quang Binh to spend.
As of now, the fate of the statue, so dear to the hearts and minds of thousands of poor yet devout Catholics in an area ravaged by Ketsana typhoon, remains uncertain, as their contact to the outside has been brutally cut off.
Father John Nguyen Van Huu, pastor of Bau Sen had publicly pleaded with Catholics all over the world and people of goodwill to help them keep this sacred religious symbol in its intended place of dedication, and most of all, to protect their right to practice religion in such a way the Vietnam constitution has clearly written and, and as Mrs. Elaine Pearson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division has recently put it: "Vietnam's respect for human rights and religious freedom has sharply deteriorated since the US removed it from its blacklist and Vietnam was accepted into the World Trade Organization...The Vietnamese government should stop treating freedom of religion as a privilege to be granted by the government rather than an inalienable right."