From: sahmed@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Saif Ahmed)
Subject: Religious persecution
Organization: Oberlin College Computer Science
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 15:35:40 GMT
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Being posted to soc.culture.bangladesh and soc.culture.pakistan
separately to avoid unnecessary cross posting.

                         Copyright 1992 Southam Inc.
                             The Gazette (Montreal)

                   November 21, 1992, Saturday, FINAL EDITION

HEADLINE: Buddhists, Muslims protest persecution at home

 BODY:
    Members of different faiths who flee to Montreal do not lose their
concern over the persecution of the co-religionists they left behind.

   Buddhists from Vietnam and Ahmadi Muslims from Pakistan provide two
current examples.

   Ven. Thich Thien Nghi, head of the Tam Bao Pagoda on Van Horne Ave.
and president of the Union of Vietnamese Buddhist Churches in Canada,
has launched

a petition campaign to urge the government of Vietnam to end
persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam. In particular, the petition asks
Vietnam to put an end to various forms of detention to which monks,
nuns and other Buddhists, and particularly five leading members of the
church, have been subjected for years.

   Thien Nghi told a reporter this week that he hopes to get
signatures from outside as well as inside the Vietnamese community.
Outsiders' signatures are likely to carry more weight with the
communist government of Vietnman than those of Vietnamese expatriates,
most of then refugees from that government.

   Petition campaigns

   These days, he said, Vietnam wants investment and other forms of
international help for its flagging economy.

   Thien Nghi was among organizers of a demonstration on Parliament
Hill in Ottawa in August.

   More recently, he took the occasion of a recent interfaith service
of prayers for peace organized by Roman Catholic Franciscans to seek
non-Buddhist support.

   The petition campaign is being co-ordinated with similar campaigns
being carried on in Vietnam itself, despite some reprisals from the
authorities, and among Vietnamese expatriates in other countries,
including Australia and the United States.

   These petition campaigns have a hopeful side.

   It seems worthwhile now to launch such campaigns because Vietnam
has become a more open society than it was a few years ago and there
has been some increase in the movement of people and information back
and forth across its borders, he said.

   The petition says oppression of the United Vietnamese Buddhist
Church since 1975 violates fundamental rights and a new Vietnamese
constitution that came into force last April.

   It urges the government to release Buddhist clergy and others who
have been subject to detention, in many cases similar to house arrest,
for a long time. In particular, these include Most Ven. Thich Huyen
Quang, head of the Vien Hoa Dao teaching institution, Most Ven. Thich
Quang Do, its secretary, Most Ven. Thich Duc Nuan, a leading official
of the Vietnamese Buddhist Church, Rev.  Thich Tue Sy, a writer, and
Rev. Thich Tri Sieu, a historian.

   The petition asks that the government stop harassing and torturing
monks, nuns and other Buddhists who circulate letters from Huyen
Quang.

   It requests legal recognition of the church and the return of
church properties.

   The petition ends on a conciliatory note:

   "If the United Vietnamese Buddhist Church has the freedom to carry
out its activities and to promote religion, this organization will
certainly contribute a lot to the development of a democratic and
prosperous Vietnamese society."

   Anyone interested in lending a hand can get in touch with the Union
of Vietnamese Buddhist Churches in Canada, 4450 Van Horne Ave.,
Montreal H35 1S1.  The phone number is 733-3841. There may be language
problems but it should be possible to leave a message for Bach Hue.

   Members of Montreal's Ahmadi Muslim community - several hundred
strong, perhaps a tenth the size of the Vietnamese Buddhist community
- fear the sort of persecution that drove them from Pakistan may have
spread to Bangladesh.

   Aziz Hafiz-Zadeh, an active Montreal Ahmadi, said news reports
suggest a Bangladesh mob of around 1,000 attacked the main Amahdi
mosque in Dacca in recent weeks. He said it was reported that about 50
people were injured and the mob set fire to the mosque's library.

   Hafiz-Zadeh said Bangladesh has a significant indigenous Ahmadi
population, although it is hard to estimate how many. Many are in
scattered villages.

   This also makes it hard to keep track of persecution, he said. But
if there is more persecution, Canadians may start getting some of the
sort of Ahmadi refugee claimants from Bangladesh they have previously
received from Pakistan.

   He said there is reason to suspect the Bangladeshi mob was whipped
up by fundamentalist Muslim mullahs from Pakistan. The Ahmadi minority
in Pakistan has been subject to incidents of mob terrorism for years
but Bangladesh had been free of this sort of thing until now.

   Montreal Ahmadis, worried that this may be another example of an
increase in the persecution of Muslim moderates and members of other
faiths by fundamentalist Muslims in a number of countries, have been
in touch with the Bangladeshi ambassador to Canada and are trying to
get more information about the incident.

   The Ahmadi movement was founded in India in 1889 by Hazrat Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be the promised reformer awaited under
different names by different religions.

   Some fundamentalist Muslims attack the movement on the grounds that
this claim undermines the fundamental Muslim doctrine that Mohammed
was the last of the prophets. Ahmadis insist that their beliefs are a
pure form of Islam that in no way denies the unique role of Mohammed.

   The news of the Dacca riot took some of the bloom off a happy event
for Canadian Ahmadis last month: the opening in Maple, near Toronto,
of the $ 4.5-million Bai'tul-Islam Mosque.

   Characteristic features of the mosque, designed by a Canadian non-
Ahmadi Muslim architect, Gulzar Haider, include striking nickle-
plated domes. It can accommodate 2,500 people.

   Montreal landmark

   The sign of the front of First Church of Christ, Scientist, is
correct. A Montreal landmark on Cote des Neiges Rd. across from the
Montreal General Hospital since the early years of this century, the
church is for sale.

   Luc Loiselle, a church spokesman, said the church is far too large
for its present congregation, less than 100 at a typical Sunday
service.

   Nevertheless, he said, the church is "not desperate," is operating
in the black, has no definite plans to move and can wait until it
receives an offer it considers appropriate.

   He said the church is autonomous in financial and real-estate
matters. There is no connection between the decision to put the
Montreal church on the market and financial problems experienced
recently by the Mother Church in Boston, related to its media
holdings.

GRAPHIC: Ahmadi Muslims opened a new mosque near Toronto last month.
The Bai'Tul-Islam Mosque can accommodate 2,500.


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| | Saifuddin Ahmed                                                        |
| | sahmed@occs.cs.oberlin.edu                                             |
| |________________________________________________________________________/
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