ICC NOTE: In an interview with Radio Free Asia Ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, David Saperstein, spoke in regards to his recent trip to Vietnam. There he was able to get ‘a feeling’ for the situation in the communist nation regarding religious freedom and the treatment of refugees in Thailand. Many Vietnamese refugees flee the country and find themselves in Thailand, but in some cases are not granted asylum and even treated just a poorly by their government as they did by Vietnamese authorities. Vietnam boasts a substantial number of pastors, lawyers, and other religious leaders currently incarcerated for what they consider to subverting the state. In many ways Vietnam uses the same tactics and charges against the Christian community as their neighbors to the north. 

04/06/2016 Vietnam (Radio Free Asia) – David Saperstein, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, just returned from Vietnam where he joined a US State Department delegation examining the state of religious freedom in the Southeast Asian country. Saperstein discussed what he found out, what changes the country is making and how religious refuges from Vietnam are being treated. The ambassador at large is a principal adviser to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and he serves as the United States’ chief diplomat on issues of religious freedom worldwide. Saperstein also heads the Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. For 40 years, Saperstein served as director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, overseeing national social justice programming for the largest segment of American Jewry. A rabbi and an attorney, for 35 years Saperstein taught seminars in First Amendment, Church-State Law and Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

RFA: You traveled to Thailand to meet with some of the Vietnamese refugees there. What did you find out?

Saperstein: All of the asylum seekers who come to Bangkok, including Vietnamese asylum seekers, live in a kind of limbo until they have their interview with the U.N. High Commission on Refugees and qualify for refugee status. Before that time, if they come to the attention of authorities, they can be detained in a detention camp kind of setting.

That is a serious challenge that all of the Vietnamese and other asylum seekers face there. They are in relative physical safety during the time they are there, and the UNHCR is working to close the gap of time it takes to have those interviews. Once they are in the UNHCR system they are in a protected status just like any other refugees across the globe.

RFA: What did the Vietnamese refugees tell you about their problems in Vietnam and what they are seeking?

Saperstein: In Bangkok, the big challenge for them is getting formally registered as refugees. Moving through that process takes some time, and there are challenges they face. Then there are some who are not in camps but are living in urban areas. It’s always a little challenging to find everyone in the urban areas to make sure that they are having their interviews and are process.

We heard stories of persecution of people who were harassed for their religious practices. They were in unregistered churches and were harassed by authorities, or they were pastors who were harassed by authorities. It was not just religious persecution. There were some who felt they were persecuted for their political beliefs or protests as well.

RFA: You met with religious leaders in Vietnam. What did you learn from them?

Saperstein: In the big cities and many other areas of the country, there was widespread agreement that there has been consistent, incremental improvement in their condition. That more churches and houses of worship are getting registered and unregistered churches are able to function with a greater deal of freedom and security then they have been before.

RFA: So does that mean Vietnam has turned the corner of religious freedom?

Saperstein: In the main, there was a feeling that things are moving in the right direction. Having said that, everyone said the continued existence of the burdensome system of registration, the onerous system of having to notify the authorities of every single activity that people want to do; not only the programmatic life of the church, or the pagoda, or the mosque, but … everything needing approval of the government, truly interferes with their autonomy and their ability to live their religious lives as they wished.

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