Vietnam Still Holding Nguyen Hong Quang in Unknown Location
Accusations of wrongdoing used to undermine jailed activist’s character.
Special to Compass
LOS ANGELES, July 8 (Compass) -- In the month since his arrest, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, general secretary of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam, remains in an unknown location and has become the victim of a propaganda campaign by Vietnamese authorities.
Authorities have been spreading misinformation through Vietnamese diplomats, newspaper reports and a government website, and they have incited neighbors of Quang to launch complaints and then circulating them publicly.
Quang has consistently documented abuses and exposed authorities who violate Vietnam’s laws regarding religious freedom and other human rights. One of Quang’s colleagues in the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship remarked that he believes that “they [Vietnam’s authorities] are going make a hard test-case” of Quang.
According to the arrest warrant provided to his wife, the basis of Quang’s June 8 arrest was “inciting other people to resist an officer doing his official duty.” Four Vietnamese Mennonites arrested on March 2 in a separate incident reportedly “confessed their crime and indicated that Hong Quang was the leader who incited them.”
An experienced Vietnam watcher believes it is highly likely that their testimony was coerced. An article on the Nhan Dan (People’s Daily) website on July 5, read: “Many people have made continuous phone [calls] to the headquarters of Nhan Dan newspaper, accusing Nguyen Hong Quang of committing perverse and law-disregarding actions following the newspaper’s recently published article which exposed the true face of the gangster.”
The website goes on to allege many aggressive actions by Quang against neighbors, using descriptions such as “true gangster” and “hooligan behavior.” It reports that in one altercation, Quang “received two slaps from Mrs. Dang Thi My Chau because he induced her under-aged teenage daughter and raped her.”
One incident involved a dispute over property Quang purchased from a Mr. Ho Van Be. Posing as a Christian believer and coached to use religious language, Be wrote complaints against Quang to local Vietnamese officials and Mennonite leaders in North America. Curiously, the documents were circulated abroad.
An article in the An Ninh (Public Security) newspaper on June 12 alleges Quang and his gang used foul and crude language in responding to polite police inquiries. It accuses them of “concealing sex films on their body” and of teaching sexual immorality to young girls.
To the contrary, the Quang family and their Mennonite co-workers have provided shelter to abused girls, including a 13-year-old recently raped by police in nearby Long Thanh Province, according to a Vietnam source.
News of Quang’s arrest reached the West within hours. (See Compass Direct, “Vietnam Police Arrest Nguyen Hong Quang,” June 10, 2004.) Human Rights Watch called for the immediate release of Quang on June 11. On June 15, the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission published a report and parts of an essay written by Quang shortly before his arrest.
A veteran Vietnam analyst says that although persecution of ethnic minority Christians is widespread and well-known, this situation constitutes evidence of a new and worrisome persecution campaign in the heart of Vietnam’s largest city. The analyst added,“Some Vietnamese Christian leaders believe that timid protests by churches in Vietnam and by Western governments to recent, serious religious freedom abuses have emboldened Vietnam.”
Quang’s colleagues in the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship report that the authorities were very upset by their public letter expressing solidarity with him. As a result, these fellow house church leaders have been under sharply increased physical and electronic surveillance.
Also, as this story went to press, information was received that authorities arrested a colleague of Quang, female Mennonite evangelist Ms. Le Thi Hong Lien, on July 3, ransacking her house located mere meters from the Mennonite church offices in Ho Chi Minh City.
Mennonite groups have registered appeals on behalf of Quang and the four other imprisoned Mennonite Christians with the Vietnamese ambassador to the U.N., Vietnam’s Bureau of Religious Affairs and to the Canadian embassy in Vietnam.
Today Christians in the United Kingdom will mark the one-month anniversary of Quang’s arrest by holding a demonstration outside the Vietnamese Embassy in London. They plan to stage a mock arrest, complete with handcuffing and imprisonment. Christian agencies in North America and the U.K. are conducting letter-writing campaigns to press for the prisoners’ release.
Quang’s current whereabouts remain unknown. Even his family has not been allowed to visit him, raising serious concerns for his well-being.
Copyright 2004 Compass Direct
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