SIMPKINS, Mr Luke, Cowan 136 9.00 pm Simpkins, Luke, MP HWE Cowan LP 0 0Mr SIMPKINS(Cowan)(9.00 pm)—On Sunday I attended the 2,654th Vesak Day, or Buddha’s birthday celebration, at the Pho Quang Monastery in Marangaroo. I have appreciated the opportunity to participate in this celebration on two previous occasions and I thank the Venerable Thich Phuoc Nhon for his kind invitation. The Venerable Thich Phuoc Nhon is both the President of the Congregation of Vietnamese Buddhists in Western Australia and the Representative of the Overseas Office of the Congregation of Vietnamese Buddhists. I worked closely with the Venerable Thich Phuoc Nhon to assist Vietnamese Buddhists from America to obtain visitor visas to Australia earlier this year.

I would also thank Thich Nu Bao Son, the Abbott of the Pho Quang Monastery, and the manager of the monastery, Thich Nu Huu Tinh, for allowing me to participate. I appreciated the opportunity to speak during the service and for the very kind introduction and thanks from Mr Thap Kim Tran, and the short notice but very well performed translation of my speech undertaken by Mrs Thuan Nicholls.

When I spoke to the members of the Vietnamese Buddhist congregation, I spoke of Vesak, representing the birth of Gautama Buddha and his enlightenment and his passing. Although I am a Christian, I know that all Buddhists are inspired by Buddha’s example and seek to live their lives faithful to him. But I also see in Buddhism examples that inspire people around the whole world. I say this because, in the leader of the Free Buddhist Church in Vietnam, the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, we have a courageous world leader. We have a Vietnamese man who has faced adversity and suffered throughout his life, and yet he remains resolute in the cause of freedom. It was therefore without any hesitation that I wrote to the Nobel committee to nominate Thich Quang Do for a Nobel Peace Prize for 2010.

As I have said on many occasions in this parliament, there are many ordinary Vietnamese people that continue to protest for democracy, religious freedom and freedom of speech. The risk for Vietnamese people who protest in Vietnam is very great; they face imprisonment, torture and the seizure of property, or worse. There families also suffer through loss of income and other forms of persecution. Those who do fight this fight do so at great risk, and their courage is remarkable.

I said on Vesak Day that it is a time when we can appreciate the bravery of the Vietnamese people, whether they be Buddhist or of another religion. I think that this is what we should do. I believe that this is particularly important and relevant because when Buddha was born he was given the name Siddhartha, meaning ‘he who achieves his aim’. From his name, for all those who have an aim, we can all derive strength and a willingness to pursue all that is good in the world, including causes such as the freedom of religion, freedom of speech and democracy.

I would like to take this opportunity to speak of some more recent events that have taken place concerning the ongoing struggle for freedom, democracy and freedom of religion in Vietnam. In the last two weeks, lawyer Nguyen Bac Truyen was released after three and a half years in prison. He had been arrested in Saigon on November 2006 and sentenced to three and a half years jail, solely for his participation in an opposition political party, the People’s Democratic Party, which is committed to freedom, democracy and human rights in Vietnam.

While it is good news in the case of Nguyen Bac Truyen, other members of the People’s Democratic Party have been imprisoned, including Dr Le Nguyen Sang, attorney Tran Quoc Hien and Mr Doan Van Dien. Still serving a house-arrest sentence are Mrs Tran Thi Le Hong and journalist Huynh Nguyen Dao. Medical doctor and democracy activist Le Nguyen Sang was arrested on 15 August 2006 with three other leaders—American citizen Do Thanh Cong, Nguyen Bac Truyen and Huynh Nguyen Dao—of the People’s Democratic Party. He was accused of committing acts of ‘terrorism’ for publishing articles ‘hostile to the regime’ on the internet. He is serving a four-year sentence.

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Tran Quoc Hien was chosen as the spokesperson for the United Workers-Farmers Organisation in January 2007. He was arrested two days later. A human rights lawyer, known for defending farmers whose land has been confiscated by the government, Tran Quoc Hien is also a prolific cyber dissenter. He has published online articles and short stories about life under surveillance. The Vietnamese government allege that Tran Quoc Hien and his associates incited demonstrations and ‘spread anti-government propaganda’. He is serving a five-year sentence.

Those familiar with the issues in Vietnam would know that the digital media in the form of websites and blogging are used effectively by the democracy activists. It was recently reported that hackers from inside Vietnam attacked and crashed pro-democracy websites and have been using malware to monitor activists. The implication is apparent that the Communist Party of Vietnam’s government is responsible for these attacks. The Communist Party should, of course, understand that the cause of democracy will not be halted by such attacks.

It is worth remembering that within Vietnam there are many pro-democracy advocates still being detained, including teacher Vu Hung; writers, Nguyen Xuan Nghia and Tran Khai Thanh Thuy; Ms Pham Thanh Nghien; Mr Ngo Quynh; attorney Le Cong Dinh; Mr Tran Anh Kim; Nguyen Tien Trung; Tran Huynh Duy Thuc; and Le Thang Long. These and many others faced baseless accusations and arbitrary detentions.

Ngo Quynh participated in student protests supporting Vietnamese territorial sovereignty. He was arrested and beaten during the Olympic torch relay on 29 April 2008 when he tried to join a peaceful demonstration in Hanoi. On 28 June 2008, after visiting democracy activist Vi Duc Hoi, Ngo Quynh and fellow democracy activist Pham Van Troi faced physical abuse and public denunciation. They were beaten and subjected to psychological harassment by an organised group of approximately 300 Communist Party members and then taken to the police station for interrogation. On 10 September 2008 Ngo was arrested and detained until his trial and sentence on 9 October 2009 in Haiphong.

What these few references to individual activists shows is that there are some key issues in Vietnam. This is, of course, a central issue of democracy: the right of people to determine their own future. There is a big difference between now and that sort of future. The aim is for a Vietnam where Vietnamese people can speak freely and where the government is accountable to the people and not where the people are accountable to the government. There is, of course, also the issue of the freedom to practise one’s religion without being hindered or persecuted by the government. This is also a matter of great importance to the Vietnamese people. There is also the issue of the freedom of speech so that citizens have the right to be critical of the government without fear of harassment as a result of that criticism.

It is in regard to this issue that we have seen in recent years much activity from Vietnamese people concerned for the interests of the nation. I refer to the bauxite mines in the highlands and the 1958 relinquishing of Vietnamese claims on various islands in the South China Sea. In both these matters it is a strong view of Vietnamese activists that the Vietnamese government has sold out to China. Indeed, these are seen as matters of national interest, and the concern is that the Communist Party officials are the beneficiaries of benefits from the Chinese at the cost of the national interest of Vietnam.

The activists are highly concerned about the environmental damage being done by the bauxite mines and that the national and local interests have come second to the Communist Party’s agenda. In particular, the mining activity has displaced local coffee and tea farmers and has also resulted in toxic waste red mud, a by-product of the refinement of bauxite. It is notable that another strong critic of the mining activities, the famous general Vo Nguyen Giap, has cited the results of a 1980 study which predicted great ecological damage would result.

It is apparent that the pro-democracy and national interest activists see the alignment of the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with China as of great concern and symptomatic of the failures of a non-democratically elected government. It is also notable that many of the activists that were arrested and detained in 2008 were seized in connection with protests against the passage of the Olympic torch before the Beijing Olympics, further suggesting that the close alignment of the Communist Party government in Vietnam with China is in fact distancing itself from the Vietnamese people.

When we think of activists and protesters for democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of religion in Vietnam, we often think of high-profile leaders such as Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, or we think of Father Ly, the famous Catholic priest. Although these are two men who have suffered terribly for their cause, we should also think of those men and women who do not have the same profile but fight on as bloggers or by using other forms of non-violent protest. I have mentioned some of them already, but there are many more, and their families as well, that are never immune to the outcomes of an oppressive government such as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

To conclude in the same way I began, I say that Buddha was born with the name Siddhartha, meaning ‘he who achieves his aim’. There are many Vietnamese who have an aim of a better future, a democratic future for their nation. They can derive strength and a willingness to pursue all that is good in the world, including causes such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech and democracy. I hope that the Vietnamese people both in Vietnam and around the world achieve their aim for their homeland as soon as possible.