Vietnam: Don’t Interfere in Buddhist Patriarch’s Funeral Government Attempt to Take Over Funeral Risks Confrontation (New York, July 9, 2008) – Members of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) should be allowed to organize and attend funeral services for their patriarch without government interference, Human Rights Watch said today. The Vietnamese government has announced that the state-sanctioned Buddhist church will organize the funeral for the UBCV Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, Thich Huyen Quang. A Buddhist peace activist who opposed French colonial rule and the US war in Vietnam, Thich Huyen Quang was a lifelong champion of human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam. He passed away in a monastery in Binh Dinh province in central Vietnam on July 5, 2008, at the age of 88. As a member of the UBCV since the 1960s, which is banned by the Vietnamese government because of its refusal to join the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Church, Thich Huyen Quang spent much of the last three decades in government-imposed internal exile, house arrest, or prison. “Thich Huyen Quang gave up his liberty for 30 years in a quest for greater human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “His followers should be allowed to pay their last respects without government interference, at a ceremony of their own choosing.”   more »