Population: 85 million
Capital: Hanoi
Government type: Communist state
Religion: Buddhist 49%; Non-religious 12.7%; Neoreligionist 11%; Ethnoreligionist 9.8%; Christian 8.7%; Atheist 6.9%

Brutal history

Vietnam was once a poor, divided country beset by dirty independence wars. Today its sights are set on becoming a 'developed nation' by 2020.

Its people endured three decades of conflict in which the communists routed first French colonisers and then the US-backed regime in South Vietnam.
The division of north and south, implemented under the Geneva Accords of 1954, ended in 1975 when the north Vietnamese overran the south and reunified the nation under communist rule.

A fast-growing economy and social development have not, however, made Vietnam any more liberal.

Despite the fact that Vietnam joined the World Trade Organisation in January 2007, its society remains one of the most repressive in the world.

Tight rein

Vietnam's constitution guarantees freedom of worship -- but the reality for Vietnam's religious minorities contradicts this claim.

The Hanoi regime does recognise a handful of religious groups and denominations: the Roman Catholic Church, one Buddhist organisation and two Protestant organisations.

Churches from these umbrella groups have to register their congregations and are then subject to close surveillance and tight control.

These groups need specific permission for most activities outside their ordinary meetings, including: building or making alterations to places of worship, holding training sessions, doing charitable works, running religious schools.

All unregistered groups are banned and their members may face imprisonment, torture or death. Many house churches say they have been trying unsuccessfully for years to register and so remain outside the law.

Christianity is seen as a Western religion and its adherents as potential subversives.

In the first half of 2007, the Vietnamese authorities jailed several high-profile religious rights activists on charges of 'propaganda against the state'. They included Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, a church leader who has been jailed four times in two decades.

Outreach by foreign missionaries is strictly prohibited.

Unprovoked attacks

The Vietnamese authorities reserve some of their worst venom for the country’s ethnic groups, who make up 14 per cent of the population. Two-thirds of Vietnamese Protestants are members of an ethnic minority.

The Montagnard hill tribes in the Central Highlands are regularly harassed, tortured, even killed for their faith, apparently with no other motive.
Hundreds have tried to escape to Cambodia, risking their lives to cross malaria-ridden jungles. The Vietnamese authorities reportedly pay Cambodian bounty-hunters for any refugees they capture and repatriate.

Other reports suggest that Christian minority groups have been forced to sign documents renouncing their faith and conduct rituals linked to tribal belief systems.

The government issued an Ordinance of Belief and Religion in 2004 which restated citizens' freedom of worship -- but also warned of penalties for activities undermining 'the country's peace, independence and unity'.

The government’s definition of such activities has been controversial, as shown by the case of the so-called 'Mennonite Six' in 2004-2005.

Six members of the Vietnam Mennonite Church in Ho Chi Minh City, including their pastor Rev Nguyen Hong Quang, were jailed for 'resisting officers of the law doing their duty'. Several were tortured: one, Le Thi Hong Lien, suffered a severe mental breakdown, triggering an international outcry.
 

RI projects

RI projects in Vietnam include:

• Plans to support three Christians who have been tortured and jailed for their faith, and forced to move home.

Sources: BBC; Compass Direct; International Christian Concern; The Voice of the Martyrs Canada; The World Factbook 2007; World Christian Database.

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