VIETNAM: Death of dissident and spiritual leader Thich Huyen Quang

23 July 2008

RAN 38/08

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN mourns the death of Buddhist leader, writer and dissident, Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, on 5 July 2008 at the age of 87 after a long illness. Thich Huyen Quang had spent most of the past thirty years in prison or under house arrest for his work in support of religious freedom, human rights and political reform in Vietnam. International PEN continues to call for the release of all those currently detained in Vietnam solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to free expression, in accordance with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Vietnam is a signatory.

Ven. Thich Huyen Quang, leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) and author of books on Buddhism and Oriental philosophy, was also a respected religious scholar. In 1978, he was proposed by Nobel Peace laureates, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. He had been detained under house arrest since 1982 for alleged "anti-government activities", but in spite of this he continued his public appeals for religious freedom and freedom of speech. Since 2003 he had been held incommunicado at Nguyen Thieu Monastery, Binh Dinh Province, where his funeral was held under tight security last week.