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Under house arrest since 2003, Vietnam Nobel Prize nominee dies at 93

In 2001, he wrote an ‘Appeal for Democracy’, and also called on northern and southern dissidents to drop their cultural differences and unite in 2005.

AFP | New Delhi | February 24, 2020 2:22 pm

Under house arrest since 2003, Vietnam Nobel Prize nominee dies at 93

Thich Quang Do, a dissident Buddhist monk who has effectively been under house arrest since 2003 and was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize, has died aged 93. Head of the banned Unified Buddist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), the vocal patriarch was born in 1928 in Thai Binh province and spent most of his life advocating for religious freedom and human rights in communist-run Vietnam.

His staunch activism landed him under what was effectively house arrest in Ho Chi Minh City in 2003, where he was under constant surveillance. Do died on Saturday night at Tu Hieu pagoda, UBCV announced on Sunday morning. According to his will signed in April 2019, Do requested a “simple funeral, not more than three days.”

“After the cremation, my ashes will be scattered at sea,” said the statement quoting his will. The UBCV also requested for followers not to bring money, as is customary for Vietnamese funerals. “There will be no final words, no biographies, no emotional showings… just praying.”

Do has long been a thorn on the side for communist-run Vietnam, and he has been nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his vocal advocacy for democracy. In 2001, he wrote an “Appeal for Democracy”, and also called on northern and southern dissidents to drop their cultural differences and unite in 2005.

He received Norway’s Rafto human rights award the following year for “his personal courage and perseverance through three decades of peaceful opposition against the communist regime in Vietnam”. The UBVC has been banned since the early 1980s when it refused to join the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Church. Vietnam has long had an uneasy relationship with organised religion.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended to the State Department that Vietnam be designated as a “country of particular concern”, citing “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”.