Ominous New Decree 95 Confirms Vietnam’s Intent to Control Religion
What Jesus said about the religious zealots of His day could also be said about the religious control zealots of today’s communist Vietnam, to wit: Decree 95, which has just been released in both Vietnamese and an official English translation.
What Jesus said about the religious zealots of His day could also be said about the religious control zealots of today’s communist Vietnam, to wit: Decree 95, which has just been released in both Vietnamese and an official English translation.
The new religion decree, promulgated on December 29 and effective on March 30, considerably adds to the crush of demands on religion while “elaborating some articles and measures for execution of the Law on Religion and Folk Belief” (LRB) of 2016.
Two draft decrees were circulating for public comment after the LRB took effect on January 1, 2018. Domestic and international reactions to the implementation of Decree 162 were extremely harsh, but with modest revision, it was quietly implemented in 2019.
The second draft decree, known pejoratively as the “punishment decree,” consisted of a multi-page schedule of administrative fines and harsher consequences for infractions of virtually all provisions of the LRB. It was so amateur and misguided that it made the purpose of the LRB look like it existed to generate funds for the government, certainly not to expand religious freedom. It was so scorned that it quietly disappeared.
But the intent of the LRB and the two ancillary decrees firmly pointed toward ever more control over religion, did not. The highly influential Vu Chien Thang, deputy minister of Home Affairs and long-time head of the Government Committee on Religious Affairs, insisted that religious legislation needed strong enforcement measures. And now we have them.
Decree 95 appeared less than three months after its effective date and without public consultation. There is some speculation that it was rapidly promulgated to help Vietnam get off the U.S. State Department’s Special Watch List for religious freedom violators. If that’s the case, it will undoubtedly fail.
Decree 95 replaces Decree 162 and the punishment decree. It contains 33 articles, eight more than Decree 162. Decree 95 also adds three more forms to the already 47 prescribed for asking permission for and reporting on religious activities. The decree and attached documents total 98 pages!
The two most important additions to Decree 162 are 1) measures on shutting down and rehabilitating activities of religious organizations and religious education institutions, and 2) requirements for local fundraising and financial management, and, for the first time, highly detailed procedures necessary for receiving foreign aid and forms for reporting on it, both finances and goods in-kind.
Also included are new requirements for promptly reporting personnel and location changes by foreign religious congregations and local congregations. These additions make the required scrutiny and threats of Decree 95 even heavier than Decree 162.
With the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and government still frozen in the “religious freedom by management and administrative control” mindset, the way forward is ever more rules. With its 50 model forms for asking for permissions and reporting, Decree 95 maintains the control of the “ask and receive” bargain long offered to religious groups. By clarifying what religious groups must do or comply with, authorities seem to rationalize that they will be seen as granting more “freedom.”
From an international religious freedom perspective, however, each new regulation diminishes the almost unqualified freedom offered in Article 24 of Vietnam’s 2013 constitution and can be used as a sharp tool to exercise control over religion. Let’s look at the two significant expansions of power.
Suspending and Rehabilitating Religious Activities
Ten of the 33 articles of the decree, or more than a third of the entire document, deal with the matter of suspending religious activities of a religious congregation or educational institution for “serious violations” of religion rules and the steps for reapproving the activities of religious organizations after satisfactory correction.
Should a religious entity or educational training institution be suspended, it has a maximum of 24 months to “correct” its behavior to the satisfaction of the suspending authority or, failing that, face permanent dissolution.
As if to mitigate the public relations damage of the earlier draft “punishment decree,” lawmakers have discarded the whole financial fine and administrative penalty idea. The punishment, however, is much harsher. Decree 95 gives officials of various levels of government administration, right down to the commune level, the authority to order the cessation of any religious organization deemed guilty of a “serious violation” of religion regulations, especially those named in Article V of the LRB. That article lists “absolutely forbidden” items such as “infringing on the morality of our indigenous culture” and “using religion for personal aggrandizement” and other subjective practices.
And nowhere in the decree is “serious violation” defined. This has been the perennial problem with all of Vietnam’s voluminous religious legislation—a “serious violation” thus becomes a subjective judgment of any competent official. Abuses are endemic. There is much room for various interpretations in these “forbiddens.” Objective clarity is lacking. Decree 95 does not alleviate these shortcomings.
A second major elaboration is in articles 25–27, detailing new regulations about the complete and prompt reporting of all funds/goods in-kind received from foreign sources.
