US embassy cable - 04HOCHIMINHCITY796

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000796 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, PGOV, PREL, KIRF, VM, HUMANR, RELFREE 
SUBJECT: LOCAL PROTESTANTS TAKE CAUTIOUS APPROACH TO MENNONITE 
PASTOR'S ARREST 
 
REF:  A) HCMC 0789   B) HCMC 0232   C) HCMC 0573   D) Hanoi 1268 
 
1. (SBU) Summary:  ConGen followed up with several local 
Protestant leaders on June 10, to obtain additional details on the 
June 8 detention of Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang (ref A) in 
HCMC.  ConGen also obtained a copy of an official "announcement" 
of the arrest, which the District 2 police reportedly gave to 
Pastor Quang's on June 10.  ConGen sources recognized the 
seriousness of the GVN's case against their colleague, and 
stressed the need to deal with the authorities in a measured way. 
At the same time, the HCMC Committee on Religious Affairs has 
apparently urged the Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam to 
keep its distance from this case.  End summary. 
 
2. (SBU) One local Protestant contact said he and his wife had 
visited Pastor Quang's home on the evening of June 9 to comfort 
the family.  They noted that police appeared to have removed 
Pastor Quang's computer and all paper documents, but had not 
ransacked or damaged the property.  (Post Note: This latter 
statement runs contrary to a June 10 report published by "Compass 
Direct," which differs in tone and substance in its account of the 
arrest and events leading up to it.  End note.)  This same 
Protestant contact provided ConGen with what he claimed was the 
wife's account of the arrest.  She reportedly told him that she, 
Pastor Quang and their three children were in their District 2 
home on the afternoon of June 8, when one of their church workers 
telephoned from another piece of property they own 300 meters down 
the road to say that several land officials from the city were 
there to survey the property.  When Pastor Quang went to meet with 
the officials, "approximately 100 police suddenly materialized" at 
both his house and the other property.  Police immediately 
handcuffed and took Pastor Quang away without a struggle.  Four 
church workers inside the building witnessed the incident, but did 
not have time to assist their leader.  They said the arrest 
happened very quickly, and while police reportedly held a handgun 
to Pastor Quang's neck, they did not treat him violently.  The 
four church workers were kept inside the building for several 
hours, while police searched the premises.  They were able to use 
their cell phones to contact their associates, however. 
 
3. (SBU) At the same time, the wife reportedly recounted to 
ConGen's source, police poured through several different doors of 
the pastor's primary residence.  In fact, she found police already 
in the second floor office by the time she and several other 
church workers made it up the staircase.  Police also secured the 
house next door, which Pastor Quang used for additional office 
space.  Approximately 20 family and friends at the primary 
residence were kept inside for several hours while police 
searched, although at least one of them was able to contact a 
member of the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (VEF) leadership on 
his cell phone.  When that VEF leader arrived about 30 minutes 
later, he thought Pastor Quang was still inside his house.  As he 
approached the house, he reportedly received a telephone call from 
a contact in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) advising him to 
leave.  Upon contacting a higher level MPS officer, he was told 
that the arrest order had come down from "the highest authority," 
which the pastor assumed to mean the central government in Hanoi. 
This second MPS contact also told him that Pastor Quang's own 
associates had provided the information leading to the arrest, 
allegedly accusing Pastor Quang of inciting them to attack police 
on March 4 (ref B). 
 
4. (SBU) According to this same ConGen source, Pastor Quang's wife 
was "invited" to the District 2 police station on the morning of 
June 10.  She was not allowed to see her husband, but was asked to 
witness the opening of evidence bags she had signed for during the 
search on June 9.  But since she herself did not know what was 
inside the evidence bags, Pastor Quang's wife told police she did 
not wish to witness their opening.  She was released after several 
hours.  Before she left, she was given a copy of a police report 
affirming her husband's temporary detention on charges of 
"inciting and encouraging others to obstruct officials in the 
furtherance of their duties."  One of Pastor Quang's assistants, 
Pastor Nguyen Huu Hien appeared at the District 2 police station 
on June 11, two days after he was "invited" to speak with them. 
He was released from questioning after a few hours, despite 
others' fears that he would also be arrested. 
 
5. (SBU) Another VEF leader told ConGen that Pastor Quang was 
arrested because the GVN was angry over information he had 
published regarding the March 4 incident and other topics on an 
activist website, www.ykien.net ("y kien" means opinion in 
Vietnamese).  This would put him in the category of a cyber- 
dissident, rather than a religious worker.  The VEF leader said he 
believes a May letter from the Mennonite Church in the U.S. to the 
GVN regarding the March 4 incident was yet another aggravating 
factor.  According to this VEF leader, the GVN was feeling 
"empowered by its success in deceiving" the international 
community over the true nature of recent ethnic demonstrations in 
the Central Highlands (refs C and D).  He noted that police had 
visited three prominent house church services in HCMC the previous 
Sunday to question the pastors about their religious activities, 
something that almost never happens in this city.  He worried that 
Pastor Quang's latest encounter with the law was extremely 
serious, and was based on a lengthy investigation.  He said Pastor 
Quang's colleagues from the VEF planned to continue their 
discussions with contacts in MPS on June 11.  (Post will report 
via septel.)  He also noted that the VEF had decided three days 
before the June 8 arrest to draft a report to the GVN on the 
current state of the house church movement.  The arrest would not 
affect those plans, although they would not address the Pastor 
Quang arrest in that document.  The VEF knew that they needed to 
be careful in approaching this issue with the GVN.  He did not 
think there would be any sort of organized protest at the police 
station. 
 
6. (SBU) A separate Protestant contact reported to ConGen that the 
Chairman and Vice Chairman of the HCMC Religious Affairs Committee 
spent one hour at the offices of the government-recognized 
Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam (SECV) on June 10 to advise 
them against getting involved in this matter.  They "reminded" the 
Executive Board that Pastor Quang was not a member of the SECV, 
and that the Mennonites were not affiliated with the Christian and 
Missionary Alliance Church, the founding denomination of the SECV. 
They described the arrest as an appropriate response to Pastor 
Quang's opposition to the government, which was a criminal matter, 
not a religious one.  On June 12, another Protestant contact 
called to say that he had heard the police had returned to Pastor 
Quang's house for a second search. 
 
7. (SBU) Comment:  Despite being directly asked, none of the 
Post's local contacts was willing to characterize Pastor Quang's 
arrest as some sort of larger GVN crackdown on Protestants, 
although there were hints that the lack of a coordinated 
international response to recent events in the Central Highlands 
might have emboldened the GVN.  There appears to be a clear 
recognition among local Protestant leaders, however, that Pastor 
Quang is something of a special case.  In their own minds, he may 
have crossed the line between purely religious work and 
controversial political activism in his bold confrontations with 
the GVN, and there are those Protestants who do not see their 
future as being out on that limb with him. 
YAMAUCHI