Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Recently we were all saddened by the actions of the Burmese regime in sentencing the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months in detention—and I am very pleased that the member for Wills has a motion on that important issue immediately after this one has finished. Aung San Suu Kyi is a great and admirable leader, but tonight I want to talk about another great leader in Asia, one who is far less known in this country, although I hope that is about to change. I refer to the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch and Secretary-General of the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

Thich Quang Do is an 80-year-old Buddhist monk. He has been one of the senior leaders of the Vietnamese Buddhist church since the 1960s and, last year, he succeeded the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang as the church’s patriarch. He has been either in prison or under house arrest almost continuously since 1982. He is an outstanding advocate of religious freedom, democracy, nonviolence and peace who is often mentioned in the same category as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Corazon Aquino and Megawati Sukarnoputri—all great champions of freedom and democracy for their countries.

Thich Quang Do has been nominated for the 2009 Nobel peace prize. It is the second time he has been nominated. The winner will be announced in October. I would like to quote the comments of Scott A Hunt, the author of The Future of Peace, in 2007, when Thich Quang Do was nominated the first time. He said:

If I had to pick who will win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, I’d go with Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do … He’s the real deal—a courageous, steadfast, peacemaker who, against seemingly insurmountable odds, has spent decades advocating for peace, justice, and religious freedom. He’s been imprisoned, interrogated, threatened, denounced, banished, and placed under house arrest, and still he has continued his struggle.

I will also quote a recent letter to the Nobel committee from four members of the US congress—Ed Royce, Loretta Sanchez, Anh Joseph Cao and Zoe Lofgren:

Thich Quang Do’s selfless actions in pursuit of human rights in Vietnam have brought him great personal hardship. His advocacy for liberty is of historic proportions and deserves to be recognized by members of your Committee—

That is, the Nobel committee. Finally, I quote Thich Quang Do himself, to give you some idea of why the Vietnamese communist regime fear this man so much and why they want him silenced. Thich Quang Do says:

As long as the Communists remain in power, the UBCV has no hope of enjoying religious freedom … Never, it’s impossible. The only way we can regain our right to existence is by accepting to become the Communist Party’s stooges. If we grovel on our knees, bow our heads, do whatever they tell us, that’s fine. The authorities would be delighted to recognize the UBCV under these conditions.

But we will never do this. And for this reason, we must be prepared for continuing repression.

Thich Quang Do is of course not the only religious leader to suffer persecution in Vietnam. I would also like to mention the courageous Catholic priest Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who has been in prison on and off for almost 15 years; he has been an Amnesty International ‘prisoner of conscience’ since 1983. In March 2007 he was sentenced to a further eight years in prison, which gives you are some indication of the nature of the Vietnamese regime. I am sure that honourable members will join me in calling on the Vietnamese government to release both of these admirable religious leaders and to stop persecuting both Vietnamese Buddhists and Catholics who speak up for religious freedom and democracy.

I do not speak on this resolution because I have a very large Vietnamese community in my electorate. I commend the member for Cowan for raising this resolution. I speak on it because, coming from a minority myself, I think it is important to defend the religious rights of all minorities around the world, particularly people who are non-violent, whether they are Tibetan Buddhists, Vietnamese Catholics or Buddhists or the Baha’i in Iran, and I think we need to be very consistent about this.

One of the ways that I think we could have a bigger influence on these kinds of issues around the world is with our human rights dialogues. The one with Iran has nearly passed into history, but we still have them with Vietnam and China. Rather than letting them be run by officials, I think if the human rights dialogues were placed under the powers of the foreign affairs committee, which has the ability to investigate and to speak to foreign affairs officials from both countries, there would be a much more powerful drilling down by members of this House of Representatives and the Senate into human rights in these countries. Thich Quang Do should be freed unconditionally. It is a shame that he is a prisoner of conscience.

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