Mr. Speaker, I recently met with the directors of Democracy for Vietnam, Drs. Lam Thu Van and Truong Minh-Dung, who shared with me their concerns for three recent cases of religious repression in Vietnam.
First, Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest, was imprisoned for calling for religious freedom for the people of Vietnam, and there has been no news of him since.
Then there the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, Patriarch of the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, who has been under house arrest for the past 19 years. He is badly in need of medical care, to which he is not allowed access.
Finally, ethnic minorities in the highlands of Vietnam are the victims of religious persecution, property confiscation, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and murder.
I call upon the Canadian government to protest this religious persecution, to ask the Vietnamese authorities to inform them of the whereabouts of Father Ly and allow the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang to receive medical care, and to encourage the Cambodian government to provide Vietnamese refugees with temporary asylum.