Head of Outlawed Buddhist Group Urges Followers Not to Lose Hope

January 22, 2004

Source: Yahoo! News

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1529&ncid=1529&e=11&u=/afp/20040123/wl_asia_afp/vietnam_rights_religion_040123030421

On January 22, 2004 Yahoo! News posted an Agence France Presse article that reported, "In a defiant Lunar New Year message, the head of an outlawed Buddhist church in Vietnam said the movement remains 'very much alive' despite almost three decades of repression by the communist regime. Thich Huyen Quang, the patriarch of Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) who has been under effective house arrest for 21 years without charge or trial, urged followers not to lose hope. 'The advent of every New Year shows us how to advance our condition by learning the universal law of impermanence,' the 86-year-old monk said in a message clandestinely sent to the church's Paris-based information arm."