{"id":28811,"date":"2017-07-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/press\/call-for-release-of-religious-freedom-defenders-3614\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T18:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T17:44:21","slug":"call-for-release-of-religious-freedom-defenders-3614","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/press\/call-for-release-of-religious-freedom-defenders-3614\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for release of religious freedom defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), together with over 40 human rights and civil society organisations, has called on the Prime Minister of Vietnam to release three religious freedom defenders detained in the county.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open letter<\/a> released on 6 July 2017, one day ahead of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc\u2019s participation in the G20 Summit in Hamburg, expresses deep concern about the detention and ill-treatment<\/span>of Buddhist monk and leader Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9, human rights lawyer Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i, and \u0110\u1ed7 Th\u1ecb H\u1ed3ng, one of the leaders of Buddhist sect \u00c2n \u0110\u00e0n \u0110\u1ea1i \u0110\u1ea1o. All three are being held in some form of detention. Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9 is currently under house arrest, having been deprived of liberty in various forms for over 30 years, while \u0110\u1ed7 Th\u1ecb H\u1ed3ng is serving a 13-year prison sentence for \u201cplotting to overthrow the government\u201d. Both of their religious groups are banned in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSW has been advocating for the release of 49-year-old human rights lawyer Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i<\/a> since his arrest in Hanoi on 16 December 2015, on the charge of \u201cconducting propaganda against the Socialist State of Vietnam\u201d. \u0110\u00e0i is a prominent religious freedom defender who has defended Christians and church leaders and has provided pro bono legal advice to religious communities. In 2007 he was sentenced to four years in prison in connection with his human rights work. After his release in 2011, he was placed under house arrest until March 2015. He was detained again in December 2015 while preparing to meet European Union (EU) delegates to the EU-Vietnam human rights dialogue in Hanoi.<\/span>After \u0110\u00e0i\u2019s arrest, CSW met with his wife Vu Minh Khanh, who urged<\/a> people outside Vietnam to \u201craise their voices to support her family\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open letter<\/a> calls on the Vietnamese government to \u201cimmediately and unconditionally release Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9, Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i, and \u0110\u1ed7 Th\u1ecb H\u1ed3ng and all other prisoners of conscience, [\u2026] revoke articles of the Penal Code under which the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of religious leaders and human rights defenders have been authorized, and amend the Law on Belief and Religion and other relevant legislation to bring them into line with international human rights law\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSW\u2019s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said, \u201cCSW remains deeply concerned about the harassment, arrest and detention of religious leaders and human rights defenders in Vietnam. A 2014 report<\/a> by CSW found that religious leaders and lay people in Vietnam are at the forefront of the struggle to promote human rights and rule of law, gathering information and disseminating it to the public, exposing corruption and abuses of power, rallying support for prisoners of conscience, calling for transparency and accountability, and becoming, even as the government clamps down on freedom of expression, the voice of dissent. On the occasion of the G20 Summit, we call on the Vietnamese government to release Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n \u0110\u00e0i, Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ed9, \u0110\u1ed7 Th\u1ecb H\u1ed3ng and all other prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, and to protect the right to freedom of religion or belief for all.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), together with over 40 human rights and civil society organisations, has called on the Prime Minister of Vietnam to release three religious freedom<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42951,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[128,136],"class_list":["post-28811","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-east-asia","regions-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39397,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28811\/revisions\/39397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28811"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=28811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}