PARIS, France - An overseas support group for an outlawed Buddhist church in communist-ruled Vietnam said on Monday a Buddhist activist burned himself to death at the weekend in a protest to demand religious freedoms.
The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIB) said 61-year-old Ho Tan Anh had set himself on fire at 4.30 a.m. on Sunday at a park in Danang, central Vietnam.
It quoted Anh as saying that 13 leaders of the Buddhist Youth Movement in Quang Nam province had pledged to follow his example. It said it was not yet known whether they had done so.
Asked about the report, a police officer in Danang told Reuters: "I cannot talk on the phone about this. You have to check with the city authorities."
City authorities could not be reached for comment on Monday, a holiday in Vietnam in lieu of Independence Day, which fell on Sunday. A spokesman for Vietnam's Foreign Ministry Press Department said he had no information.
The IBIB said Anh killed himself at the Revolutionary Mothers' Memorial park in Thanh Khe, Danang. It said before his death, he left letters to international leaders, Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and detained heads of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV).
The IBIB said the UBCV leaders had opposed Anh's decision to kill himself, but he had gone ahead anyway.
"I have... decided that the only way I can protest is by setting my body on fire to denounce repression against the UBCV and all other religions in Vietnam," it quoted him as saying.
The U.S. Congress is due to vote in a few days on a landmark trade agreement signed with Vietnam last year and a bill calling for it to respect human rights.
In March, overseas supporters said a member of the outlawed branch of the Hoa Hoa Buddhist sect burned herself to death in a similar protest in a village in southern Vietnam. Later that month, police in Ho Chi Minh City said they had foiled a mass immolation by Hoa Hao Buddhists in a city centre park.
Several Buddhist monks burned themselves to death in famous public protests in the early 1960s to protest against religious repression by the then government of South Vietnam.
The Hanoi government, which took over South Vietnam in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War, insists it respects religious rights. It permits worship by six authorised churches.
05:11 09-03-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.