Vietnam’s imprisonment of Khmer monks was a violation of religious freedom, the rights group says

Human rights activists accused communist-led Vietnam of violating religious freedom after a court this week imposed prison sentences on five ethnic Khmer Buddhist monks and four religious activists.

A court in the southern province of Long An sentenced the men to prison terms of two to six years after finding them guilty of “abuse of democratic freedoms to violate state interests” and of illegally detaining people, according to a statement from the Police.

Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates said late Wednesday that the monks’ convictions against the monks were “outrageous and unacceptable.”

Khmer Krom Buddhist monk Thach Chanh Da Ra was given the longest term of six years after a trial on Tuesday, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.

Police said Thach Chanh Da Ra instructed his followers to illegally detain and attack local authorities when they tried to search the temple, where he lived, in November 2023.

The monks were arrested in March this year.

The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, which represents the Khmer Krom people in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region, said the monks were responding to an attack by non-uniformed Vietnamese officials. The officials, accompanied by local gang members, had disrupted a Khmer language class at the temple, the report said.

In 2022, authorities also attempted to cut down a sacred 700-year-old tree in the same temple, the federation added.

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“What was really at trial was the right of the Khmer Krom people to practice their religion, language and culture without interference from Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party,” said Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates.

He said the monks had no lawyers because they could not afford them and believed no one would take the risk to represent them.

Robertson added that the verdicts showed the government was intolerant of freedom of religion or belief outside strictly controlled official structures.

The U.S. State Department included restrictions on religious freedom among a long list of “major human rights issues” in a 2023 report on Vietnam. REUTERS