{"id":54458,"date":"2025-02-04T16:05:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T00:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/christian-group-criticizes-vietnams-arrest-of-pastor\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T16:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T00:05:32","slug":"christian-group-criticizes-vietnams-arrest-of-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/christian-group-criticizes-vietnams-arrest-of-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian group criticizes Vietnam\u2019s arrest of pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read more on this topic in Vietnamese<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

UPDATED at 14:20 on Feb. 3, 2025.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

An international Christian group has criticized Vietnam\u2019s arrest of a prominent pastor, saying it makes a mockery of the country\u2019s membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n

Police in Lam Dong province arrested Nguyen Manh Hung, 71, on Monday on charges of \u201cpropaganda against the state.\u201d The charges fall under Article 117 of the Criminal Code, which rights groups say is vaguely worded so it can be used as a catch-all charge against perceived dissent. <\/p>\n

Hung belongs to the Chuong Bo Protestant Church and serves on the Interfaith Council of Vietnam. Neither organization is officially registered with the government.<\/p>\n

He is the first person to be arrested under Article 117 this year. If convicted, he could be jailed for up to 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe arrest of Pastor Nguyen Manh Hung is yet another sign that the Vietnamese Communist Party is insouciant towards its obligations under international law to respect the rights of all Vietnamese citizens,\u201d said Mervyn Thomas, president of the group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, or CSW.<\/p>\n

Most of the Christians charged under Article 117, are from minorities living in the Central Highlands, according to CSW, which said this was evidence that Vietnam\u2019s top leader, General Secretary To Lam, has been targeting ethnic and religious minorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis makes a mockery of Vietnam\u2019s membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the government must be held to account accordingly,\u201d said CSW\u2019s Thomas.<\/p>\n

Radio Free Asia emailed Vietnam\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask for a comment on the CSW assertion but had not received a reply by time of publication.<\/p>\n

RELATED STORIES<\/b><\/p>\n

Vietnam jails famous singer\u2019s grandson for supporting overthrown government<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Vietnam arrests Protestant pastor for \u2018anti-state propaganda\u2019<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

EXPLAINED: Why Vietnam wants to join the Human Rights Council \u2013 again<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Solitary confinement<\/b><\/p>\n

On Thursday, Hung\u2019s son, Nguyen Tran Hien \u2013 who was also briefly detained \u2013 said his father was being held in solitary confinement. He told RFA that police hadn\u2019t given his family a warrant for his father\u2019s arrest or one for searching their home.<\/p>\n

The arrest comes just ahead of the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington on Feb. 4-5. Several Protestant groups in the Central Highlands have told RFA they have been under police surveillance ahead of the conference. <\/p>\n

On Jan. 22 police in Dak Lak province, which is also in the Central Highlands, summoned pastor Y Wen Nie to question him in connection with \u201cundermining the solidarity policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christians are not the only religion to be targeted ahead of the summit.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 26, Venerable Thich Nhat Phuoc of the Unified Buddhist Sangha of Vietnam, was prevented from flying to the U.S. to attend the summit. His group is not officially registered with the government and he was told he couldn\u2019t leave the country on national security grounds.<\/p>\n

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Updated to remove reference to Nguyen Manh Hung as a minority.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tin t\u1eeb RFA Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read more on this topic in Vietnamese UPDATED at 14:20 on Feb. 3, 2025. An international Christian group has criticized Vietnam\u2019s arrest of a prominent pastor, saying it makes a mockery of the country\u2019s membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Police in Lam Dong province arrested Nguyen Manh Hung, 71, on Monday on …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[246,251],"class_list":["post-54458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vietnam","tag-english","tag-rfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}