Ngoc Nhi Nguyen (Danlambao) - Hoa Hao Buddhist practitioners are the main witnesses in the Hearing today on the case of Bui Thi Minh Hang, Thuy Quynh and Van Minh, yet they were not allowed near the Court house let alone inside.
They were chased away and when they sat down to pray peacefully, the police jumped in and beat them up. One lady practitioner was hit on the head and fainted . Another elderly practitioner, Mr Liem, was hit several times on the head.
The truth was when the 3 accused Hang, Quynh and Minh were arrested, together with another 17 people, most of them were Hoa Hao Buddhist practitioners (whom later were released), they were on the way to Lap Vo, Dong Thap, where the local police, with orders from the Vietnamese government was breaking into Hoa Hao Buddhist's worshiping venues and causing damages to the altars and other sacred items, including picture of their Supreme Founder.
The group was going to Lap Vo to help the Hoa Hao Buddhists when they were stopped by the police. The police staged a scene and fabricated evidence to arrest the group and to later charge the 3 activists mentioned above, to prevent them from reaching Lap Vo and from helping each others.
On the outside, the trial is for "disturbing public order" while in reality, it is a case of religious crack down. Hao Hao Buddhism has a long history of being defiant to the communist regime. Their Supreme Leader and Founder of the sect, Huynh Giao Chu, was anti- communist and was thought to have been kidnapped and murdered by them at a secret meeting. He was invited to a meeting with the communist representatives back in 1947 and never came back.
For that reason, the Vietnamese communist government has never felt good about Hoa Hao Buddhism and has always tried to either corrupt the practitioners or to destroy the sect completely.
Many people going to Dong Thap to try to attend the trial were arrested, some were beaten but none was beaten as savagely as the Hoa Hoa Buddhists. That shows how much this government hates these gentle practitioners.
