Four
years and six months prison sentence for advocating the Right to Freedom of Religion
Mr.Nguyen van Lia, born in 1940, resided in
Kien Quoi hamlet, Kien Thanh commune, Cho Moi district, An Giang
province,Vietnam, was arrested on April 24, 2011 and sentenced to four years
and six months for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests
of the state,” according to article 258 of the penal code of Vietnam by the
People’s Court of Cho Moi district, An Giang province. Mr.
Lia is currently jailed in Xuan Loc prison, Dong Nai province.
Religious activities
Prior to 1975, Mr. Nguyen Van Lia
was a Hoa Hao teacher,
member of the teaching staff of the Central Executive Board of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church (HHBC). After 1975,
the communist authorities ordered the
dissolution of the HHBC, confiscated or controled
the Church’s premises and assets.
His Church being banned,
Mr. Lia carried on his
practice at home and started
to advocate peacefully religious freedom
for the Hoa Hao buddhists
On Dec16, 1999, after a group of Hoa
Hao buddhists tried to put back the
ancient sign on Hoa
Hao Ancestral Temple ( birthplace of Prophet Huynh Phu So) in Hoa Hao Holy Land
( Phu Tan district, An Giang province) but the province authorities sent
hundreds agents from the police and civil defense forces to stop the project. On
Dec.26, 1999, Mr Lia and the group again tried for the second time to rehabilitate
the sign of their Ancestral Temple( which was downplayed to be merely the House of the family Huynh). They were
brutally assaulted , arrested and jailed in Phu Tan district police station.
Because of the enormous pressure of the international media, Phu Tan
authorities released them and had the state-sanctioned Hoa Hao Buddhist Church
erect the sign under the supervision of Mr Dinh cong Đoan from the National
Front of An Giang province.
Mr.
Nguyen Van Lia peacefully advocated the right to freedom of religion for Hoa
Hao Buddhism by writing articles and calling for freedom to candidate fors and to elect the dignitaries of the Hoa Hao
Central Executive Committee. Mr. Lia paid special attention on taking care of
the Hoa Hao prisoners of conscience and their families in the spirit of
“Sharing Food and Clothing”
Ms. Mai Thi Dung, Hoa Hao buddhist and former prisoner of
conscience recently released im April 2015, recalled
"before I was arrested (2005) I only heard from uncle Lia without
having the occasion to meet him. When both my husband and I were imprisoned for
protesting against religious persecution, uncle Lia regularly visited and
helped my old mother and my children. I am very thankful and hope he will be
released soon.”
The “Traditional Hoa Hao
Buddhism”
In 2007 Mr. Nguyen Van Lia together with his Hoa Hao community in
the West (South Vietnam) instituted
unofficially the group “Traditional Hoa Hao Buddhism” (THHB) to promote the authentic
teaching of Prophet Huynh and the traditional ethical and moral
codes which are both garbled and distorted by the communist government.
In 2009, the group (THHB) officially protested the plan
of the authorities to erase the Ancestral Temple An Hoa Tu, a Hoa Hao
historical site which was the birth and living place of the founder, Prophet
Huynh. Mr Lia represented the group to
meet with different diplomatic delegations of the countries concerned about the
religious freedom situation in Vietnam. Twice a year, Mr Lia organized visiting
delegations to the families of Hoa Hao predecessors and adherents who were
suffering detention and martyrdomfor advocating
their belief.
In April
2011, after being arrested and convicted for the second time and while being
detained in Bang Lang prison, An Giang province, Mr. Nguyen Van Lia was honored
by the Nguyen Kim Dien Religious Freedom Award.
First conviction in 2003
The
first conviction was in 2003, when Mr. Lia commemorated the 56th anniversary of the disappearance of Hoa Hao
Buddhist founder – Prophet Huynh Phu So - who went on April 19,1947 in good faith to a meeting with Ho Chi Minh
and has not been seen since. Mr. Lia was
arrested and convicted to three years of prison for “resisting persons in the
performance of their official duties” according to article 257 of the Vietnam
criminal code. The sentence in both courts of first instance and of appeal was 3
years imprisonment.
Second conviction in 2011
Mr
Lia and his wife, Ms Tran Thi Bac Lon, were arrested on April 24, 2011, as they
drove to attend a death anniversary
ceremony for a Hoa Hao follower in Cai Nai-Mo Ba, Hoi An commune, Cho Moi
district, An Giang province. It was a blatant trumped-up traffic violation: as
Mr Lia protested because the traffic police, finding nothing illegal in his
papers, intentionally broke the rear-view mirror of his motocycle. He was
handcuffed and together with his wife was taken to the Hoi An police station by
6 public securety agents under the command of Lieutenant colonel Nguyen van Goi
. The police use violence to put Mr Lia’s fingerprints on reports he was not
aloud to read, causing Mr Lia fingers
and flank pain for 8 months.
According
to a public letter calling for help from Mr Lia ´s wife on May 8, 2011, the
police illegally took away money and objects in their possession . A couple of hours
later, a Hoa Hao friend , Mr Truong Kim Long , who came to Hoi An police
station to inquire about the reasons of their arrest was also tied up and
beaten by two policemen named Bon and Goi. Authorities released Ms Bac Lon and
Mr Long that night, but have detained Mr Lia ever since and prevented his family from
seeing him for more than six months after his arrest.
On
a visit on November 30, 2011, Mr Lia informed his family the police brutally
tried to coerce an admission of guilt from him during multiples interrogations
but he maintained his innocence and refused to sign a prepared document from
the police . His wife, in a second public letter calling for help ,written on
Dec.15, 2011 raised concern about the deterioration of his health and several
injuries like broken ribs her husband got in custody.
On Dec.13,
2011, in a 3 hours session, the People’s Court of Cho Moi District in An Giang
province convicted Mr Lia of "abusing democratic freedoms and jeopardizing
the security of the state," and sentenced him to five years prison in a so
called “open trial” where his old mother, wife and daughter were not allowed to
attend. Only his son succeeded to pass through the police cordon. There was no legal
representant, and the Hoa Hao fellow-buddhists invited by the court were not
allowed to express themselves. As Mr. Lia tried to defend himself, he was
dragged by force out of the court. DVDs
about Mr Lia ´s visits to the families of other Hoa Hao Buddhists in custody in
2011 were admitted by the court as documents criticizing the Vietnamese
government of violating religious freedom.
The
Appeal Court in An Giang province confirmed on March 2, 2012 both conviction
and sentence but reduced the charge of 6 months due to Mr Lia ´s old age.
Brutal
prison conditions and critically failing health
Mr. Nguyen Van Lia is 74 years old, has high
blood pressure but does not get his medication regularly in prison, and has
lost most of his hearing after being beaten by the police in another previous
arrest. Currently Mr. Lia is serving the sentence in prison 2, Xuan Loc district,
Dong Nai province , about 400 Km from his home province An Giang, which means more
than 7 hours travel according to road conditions in Viet Nam .
Detention far away from home is a subtl
policy to isolate the detainee because he cannot be visited regularly by his
family, causing shortages of medicines and supplement foods. It was used also
to pressure him into admitting guilt. As Mr. Lia stayed unbending, he was
forced to do hard labor in spite of his old age. The harassement only stopped
after Mr Lia went through a period of hunger strike
Observations.
Mr. Nguyen Van Lia is a spiritual leader of the
“Traditional Hoa Hao Buddhism” group.
He
is a scholar, author and co-author
of several Hoa Hao Buddhist religious instruction texts and books, and is
mainly known for his peaceful advocacy of the Hoa Hao faith.
Since the date April 30, 1975 Mr Lia was detained and arrested
15 times, sentenced
twice to prison , injured dozens
of times in faked traffic accidents, beaten causing broken
shoulder , ribs, ear
trauma, coma ... but he still persevered
in his struggle for the Freedom of religion for the Independent Hoa
Hao followers in the West,
South Vietnam.
In May 2009, he met with representatives
from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to speak about the
Vietnamese government’s repression of his group. After the meeting, he was
repeatedly harassed by the local police of Cho Moi district, An Giang province,
although all his activities were fully allowed and protected under Vietnam’s
international human rights and constitutional obligations.
Mr. Lia was convicted of "abusing democratic freedoms and
jeopardizing the security of the state," according to Article 258 of the
Vietnamese criminall code, which conditions the exercise of
freedom of religion or belief on “the
interests of the State” , giving the state full
authority to sanction people for all kinds of activities.
Article
258 is routinely invoked to arrest and prosecute followers of unsanctioned
religious groups.
In the case of Mr. Lia, the government of
Vietnam truly violated his freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to
be free of torture and cruel treatment, and his rights to a fair trial as
determined in the Constitution of the Republic Socialist of Vietnam, the
International Covenant in Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations
Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
On October 10, 2015 Mr. Nguyen
Van Lia was discharged
from custody after serving his complete sentence. He refused to be “escorted” home and chose to
be picked up at the gate of Xuan Loc prison by his family and fellow Hoa Hao
Buddhists. After 4 years and 6 months
of harsh and inhuman prison
conditions , Mr Lia´s health
has greatly deteriorated,
calling for help to provide urgent treatment of many diseases.
oOo
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