2003: Thích Huyen Quang

2003

Thich Huyen Quang - Vietnam

Imprisoned, House Arrest

Buddhist leader, writer and dissident, Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, was born Le Dinh Nhan in Binh Dinh province of southern Vietnam in September 1920. In 1932, at the age of 12, he became a monk. However, in his mid-20s following the end of World War II in 1945 he joined the resistance movement against French colonial rule. He experienced his first spell in prison in 1951 when he was imprisoned and held for four years by members of the communist controlled Viet Minh independence movement for his opposition to communism. He was freed in 1954 just before the Geneva Agreement which divided Vietnam into two states, North and South. Thich Huyen Quang remained with the Buddhist Church in South Vietnam, but found himself back in jail in from August to November 1963 for taking part in the struggle against religious discrimination. It was an incident in May 1963 causing death to a number of Buddhist followers during Buddhist celebrations and the subsequent jailing of Buddhist leaders, that led to the formation, in December that year, of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBVC).

In 1974Thich Huyen Quang was appointed Vice President of the UBVC's executive institute, and in the early 1970s represented the Church at various international conferences. After 1975, the UBCV protested increased repression against the Church by the communist authorities. For this, along with other UBVC leaders, Thich Quang Do was arrested in 1977, and sentenced to a two year suspended sentence. In 1981 he was again arrested and subsequently sent into exile at the Hoi Phuoc Pagoda in Quang Ngai. The UBCV was banned. In April 1992, the UBVC's third Supreme Patriarch Thich Don Hau died, and Thich Huyen Quang was appointed his successor.

Throughout his 26 years of "pagoda arrest", Thich Huyen Quang, continued his public appeals for religious freedom and freedom of speech. In 1993 he issued a "Buddhist Proposal for Democracy and Human Rights", proposing not only religious freedom, but also free elections in a multi-party system. In response, security forces visited his pagoda, confiscating all his official papers and the seal of the UBCV. Thich Huyen Quang was subsequently transferred to a new location where he was kept in total isolation. Five years later, in 1998, Nobel Peace Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama, publicly called for his release. Since 2003 he had been held incommunicado at Nguyen Thieu Monastery, Binh Dinh Province where he remained until he died in July 2008 at the age of 88 after a long illness.

Thich Huyen Quang was the author of books on Buddhism and Oriental philosophy as well as being a respected religious leader. In 1978 he was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.