HANOI, April 11 (Reuters) - Vietnam denied on Wednesday that a dissident Buddhist leader was under threat after he issued an appeal for democracy backed by 35 members of the U.S. Congress and a Nobel Peace laureate.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said 73-year-old monk Thich Quang Do was "worshipping normally" at his pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.
The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau said in statement on Wednesday that it was concerned for the safety of Do, an outspoken advocate of religious freedoms and human rights, after he was threatened with arrest a few days ago.
The bureau said Do had called on Tuesday morning to report that police had surrounded his pagoda. It said his phone was cut off in mid-sentence and they had not spoken to him since.
The statement said officials had recently accused Do of "going too far" in his appeal for democracy, which has been backed by 35 members of the U.S. Congress and 70 other international figures, including Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and members of the European Parliament.
The Foreign Minstry's Thanh rejected the allegations.
"The International Buddhist Bureau has a habit of releasing fabricated information and slanders about the situation in Vietnam," she said in a statement. "It is absolutely untrue that Mr Thich Quang Do's security is under threat."
PHONE BUSY AND UNOBTAINABLE
Do could not be reached on Wednesday on either his monastery or mobile phone, which rang busy and unobtainable.
The report was the latest concerning harassment of dissident religious leaders at a time of tension in the run up to the ruling Communist Party's key five-yearly congress on April 19.
In March, dissident Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly was placed under restriction for two years after urging the U.S. Congress not to ratify a historic trade pact signed with Vietnam last year because of rights abuses.
A similar restriction order barring travel beyond a set area was later placed on a the leader an banned branch of the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect, Le Quang Liem.
On Tuesday, Hanoi slammed a call by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF) for Washington to withhold support for hundreds of millions of dollars of World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans to Vietnam because of rights abuses.
The call by the CIFR, an advisory body to the U.S. Congress, was made in letters to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil
The CIRF said that despite an increase in religious practice in Vietnam in the past decade, "the Vietnamese government suppresses organised religious activities forcefully and monitors and controls religious communities."
It said individuals had been detained, fined, imprisoned, and kept under surveillance for religious activities outside the six official recognised religions.
On Friday, the IMF board approved a $368 million loan to Vietnam, its first in five years, but Washington abstained in the voting. The World Bank is due to decide on loans of up to $400 million to Vietnam next month.
10:33 04-11-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.