Hoa Hao leader and freedom campaigner dies at 95

 

 

Doan Trang – VNRN

July 18, 2015

One of Vietnam’s most distinguished religious leaders, and a veteran campaigner for religious freedom, has died at the age of 95.

The Venerable Le Quang Liem of the Hoa Hao Buddhist church, which once ran a private army in the days of South Vietnam, served time as a prisoner of conscience after the Communist victory in 1975.

He was chairman of the church’s Central Council, one of six officially recognised religions in Vietnam, but whose adherents have suffered persecution at the hands of the Communists.

In his earlier years the Venerable Liem witnessed the Buddhist group’s struggles against the French, the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem and the Viet Minh.

It once ran a private army in the Mekong Delta, which resisted the South Vietnamese state, before being crushed by government forces.

Pro-democracy bloggers have called for their supporters to attend a rally at his funeral, which will be held in Ho Chi Minh City on July 20.

The Hoa Hao Buddhist Church claims two million adherents, many of them farmers in the Mekong Delta.

Le Quang Liem, who was born in 1920, was one of the oldest apostles of Huynh Phu So, who founded the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church in 1939.

The church espouses the simple and practical application of Buddhist teaching and developed a strong following among peasant farmers in the south of the country.

It put little emphasis on the building of pagodas and formal ceremony. One of its most prominent slogans is “practicing Buddhism while working your land”.

The Venerable Liem was imprisoned by the Communist government in the years after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

But he never relented in his struggle for religious freedom.

In more recent times he became a prominent member of Bloc 8406, a political organization calling for democratic reform founded in 2006.

The group was persecuted and some members received lengthy prison terms.

He worked closely with other religious leaders to demand total independence from government control and the freedom to chose their own leaders.

In 2001 he worked with Father Nguyen Van Ly, a well known Catholic priest and dissident who has served many years in prison.

They founded the Interfaith Council of Vietnam with other religious leaders to push for religious freedom in the country.

 

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