News Item: : Two protestant churches authorised in Vietnam
(Category: Front Page)
Posted by Pray4vn - Webmaster
Wednesday 24 January 2007 - 19:55:16
Vietnam officially authorised two Protestant churches to operate freely in a
symbolic gesture towards greater religious freedom, officials said Monday.
The Vietnam Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the Vietnam Grace Baptist Church
received Saturday in Ho Chi Minh City "certificates of religious practice",
said an official at the government's committee for religious affairs.
"After one year, if their operations are stable and meet all criterias of the
ordinance on religious activities, they will be given the full legal status,"
she said.
"The two were established in Vietnam before 1975 and they operated normally
after, although they did not have legal status."
The US State Department in November took Vietnam off the list of countries
oppressing religions, saying all religious prisoners had been released, laws
restricting religious activities lifted and numerous churches reopened.
Vietnam was added in 2004 to the US blacklist for its repression of religious
groups, mainly Protestants.
The state-controlled Vietnam News Agency said the two churches would be allowed
to perform religious ceremonies, print prayer books, build or upgrade worship
places and organize religious events.
Government's figures say there are about 60 "Protestant sects" in Vietnam.
"Two of them were fully acknowledged in 1958 and 2001. One was given a similar
certificate in September 2006 in (central) Danang," the official said.
Established in 1929, the Vietnam Seventh-Day Adventist Church currently has
almost 13,000 followers, VNA said. The Vietnam Grace Baptist Church started in
1962 and claims 2,592 followers, mostly in the south.
The situation for Protestants is however still difficult in Vietnam's central
highlands, where authorities broke up large-scale demonstrations in 2001 and
2004 against religious persecution and confiscation of ancestral lands.
The violence triggered mass exodus to Cambodia and tension is still present in
the troubled region.
VNA said that during Christmas celebrations, Communist Party leaders "expressed
hopes" that Protestants in central highlands' Dak Nong province would "prevent
plots and schemes aimed at shattering unity."
Source: Agence France Presse
Date: Dec 25 2006
This news item is from Pray for Vietnam
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