Vietnam actively contributes to ensuring religious freedom

Making reports, drafting open letters, and making false recommendations about the religious situation in Vietnam, using religious freedom as a pretext to carry out dark plots to sabotage the Party and State of Vietnam... are a series of familiar tricks that hostile forces have promoted in recent times. However, the achievements of religious work in Vietnam that have been recognized and highly appreciated by many international friends have been the clearest answer to the need to ensure human rights as well as freedom of belief and religion for all classes of people.

The year 2023 witnessed many important events affirming Vietnam's positive contributions in the field of protecting and promoting human rights in general and freedom of belief and religion in particular at both the international and national levels.

Notably, on April 3, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA), proposed and drafted by Vietnam. The resolution is a remarkable mark of Vietnam in its second term as a member of the Human Rights Council, demonstrating Vietnam's substantial and responsible contributions in the field of human rights.

In June, the National Assembly delegation led by Mr. Don Tuan Phong, Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, attended the Parliamentary Conference on Religious Dialogue organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Morocco. Before the inter-parliamentary forum of 163 countries, the Vietnamese delegation informed international friends about important achievements in ensuring freedom of belief and religion; acknowledged the contributions of religious organizations in the fields ofeducation , health, social protection, and charity; and affirmed the role of National Assembly deputies who are religious dignitaries in the cause of national construction and development.

Recently,President Vo Van Thuong paid an official visit to the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Francis. During this visit, with the common desire to continue promoting relations between the two sides, the two sides officially announced that the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Holy See had approved the “Agreement on the Regulations of Operation of the Permanent Representative and the Office of the Permanent Representative of the Holy See in Vietnam”.

The two sides expressed their belief that the Permanent Representative of the Holy See will properly perform its functions and tasks in the Statute; support the Vietnamese Catholic community to operate in the spirit of respecting the law and the teachings of the Church, implementing the guidelines of "accompanying the nation", "good parishioners and good citizens", actively contributing to the development of the country; at the same time, promoting its role as a bridge to promote relations between Vietnam and the Holy See.

The above results have shown the efforts of the Party and State in caring for the lives of citizens according to religion, thereby creating conditions for all people to enjoy economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights according to international standards in addition to perfecting the legal system and implementing policies and guidelines, thereby aiming at the goal of increasingly improving the material and spiritual life of all classes of people and better ensuring human rights.

Despite this reality, hostile and ill-intentioned forces still deliberately open forums or participate in many events to sabotage Vietnam. Recently, BPSOS (Board for the Relief of Refugees) announced that it would participate in the “Ministerial Conference of Nations on the Issue of Religious Freedom Worldwide” (FoRB) as a co-organizer with a contingent of up to 30 participants to “present at the conference the current state of religious human rights in Vietnam”. However, in reality, FoRB is not a “Ministerial Conference of Nations on the Issue of Religious Freedom Worldwide” but an “International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion and Belief”. The event has the official participation of representatives from 36 governments.

The conference has been held four times before, in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. At the conference, in addition to the official sessions, social organizations are allowed to hold some side discussions, provided that they register and are self-funded. These informal events do not affect the joint statements and resolutions of the countries participating in the conference. Moreover, not all joint statements are agreed upon by all FoRB member countries. For example, at the 2022 conference, only 8 countries signed the Declaration on freedom of belief and religion and gender equality.

Thus, the fact that BPSOS claims to be a co-organizer of FoRB is misleading, but is being used by this organization to boost its reputation in overseas mass media. Not only that, the topics that BPSOS said it would present at FoRB are still just repetitions of the content they presented at the so-called "Third International Religious Freedom Summit" (IRF-2023) held earlier this year. It is worth mentioning that related to a number of cases and events that have been publicly and transparently reported on domestic and foreign mass media, BPSOS and other anti-government groups have been directing them in a negative direction, aiming to blacken the situation of religion and belief in Vietnam.

However, the alertness of many people makes them not easily fooled, so despite the loud cheers, the presentation at IRF-2023 by these “fighters” only attracted a sporadic audience, which was mainly anti-communist exiles. However, BPSOS and other anti-government organizations still seem to be “trying to make a go of it”.

For example, the incident of “Cao Dai 1997 and Cao Dai Chon Truyen 1926” that Nguyen Dinh Thang (the leader of BPSOS) has been continuously sharing on social media recently is essentially a conflict between two Cao Dai religious organizations in the United States. However, BPSOS slandered the Vietnamese State by claiming that the Cao Dai 1997 branch (a branch of the Cao Dai Holy See of Tay Ninh in the United States) was “set up by the Vietnamese State” to “destroy Cao Dai in Vietnam” and “attack” those who protect Cao Dai Chon Truyen 1926… in the United States. Do they want to ignore the fact that to date, the State has recognized 10 Cao Dai churches, 21 Cao Dai organizations operating independently, and granted religious activity registration to 01 Cao Dai sect? The Cao Dai Holy See of Tay Ninh is one of them, operating legally in Vietnam.

As of December 2021, Cao Dai congregations and organizations had more than 1.2 million followers, more than 13,000 dignitaries, 26,000 officials, and 1,300 religious establishments in 38 provinces and cities in Vietnam (data from the White Book "Religion and Religious Policy in Vietnam", Religion Publishing House, 2023). Not to mention a number of legal Cao Dai religious organizations in Vietnam that have been expanding their missionary activities to many countries around the world without being prevented or hindered by the Vietnamese government.

In addition, BPSOS, along with other extremist organizations such as “Montagnards for Justice”, “Vietnam Multi-Religious Roundtable”, and “Christian Evangelical Church”, constantly take advantage of religious and ethnic issues to call on the international community to support secession, demanding the establishment of a “separate state and separate religion” for the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands.

After the terrorist attack in Dak Lak on June 11, 2023, these organizations not only did not condemn the crime, but also blatantly accused the government of "inciting violence" and "oppressing ethnic minorities" with the aim of dividing the great solidarity of ethnic groups in the Central Highlands. At the same time, these subjects also deliberately justified the trick of disguising religion to spread narrow-minded nationalist ideology, plotting to gather forces, and then causing disturbances, protests, and riots by anti-government organizations.

For many years, especially in 2023, hostile forces have continuously stepped up sabotage activities related to the fields of religion, belief and ethnicity in Vietnam. They have called on intergovernmental organizations and major countries to "put Vietnam on the special watch list for religious freedom", as a springboard to exert pressure and interfere in Vietnam's internal affairs, especially when Vietnam was elected Vice President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 2022-2023 term and was elected for the second time to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. Despite the increasingly destructive tactics of hostile forces, Vietnam has still achieved undeniable achievements in the fields of human rights and freedom of belief and religion.

Reality has proven that in Vietnam there is no discrimination of beliefs and religions, no contradictions or conflicts between religions; people of different beliefs and religions live together in harmony in the community of Vietnamese ethnic groups. When visiting Vietnam, any international tourist can feel the harmonious and tolerant life between religions as well as the consensus between religions and the State.

The good news is that in the context of international integration, Vietnam has had more official channels to inform international friends about the current situation of religious freedom. In addition, through bilateral, multilateral, regional and international cooperation mechanisms, especially the United Nations, the Vietnamese State has demonstrated its positive contributions in the fight to protect and promote progressive principles and contents of religious freedom, and has always steadfastly defended the right in this field at the national and international levels.

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