PARIS, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Security police in central Vietnam hastily buried the body of a Buddhist activist who burned himself to death at the weekend after refusing to allow his family to organise a funeral, an overseas support group said on Wednesday.
The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIC) said 61-year-old Ho Tan Anh's body was identified by his brother Ho Tan Quan at a hospital in Danang on Monday, the day after his suicide.
But Quan's request to take the remains home for a funeral were rejected on the grounds that the dead man carried no identity papers, the support group said in a statement.
"The very same day, the body was hastily buried by security police," it said.
The government has yet to confirm Anh's death, saying only on Tuesday that officials in Danang had reported finding "a victim who died by fire" whose identity was not clear.
The IBIC said Anh, a poor peasant farmer who was a section head of the Buddhist Youth League, had left a letter complaining of "violent threats and harassment" because of his support for the outlawed United Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV).
According to the IBIC, Anh's letter said that in one re-education session on August 23, security police warned him and other UBCV Buddhists, "if you don't listen to us, we will kill you...our regime is a dictatorship, we can do what we want."
The IBIC said that in a final letter written just before his suicide, Anh called for the ruling Communist Party to respect human rights and democracy and protested against a recent clampdown on the UBCV, which has included the detention of its deputy leader, Nobel Peace prize nominee Thich Quang Do, in June.
The suicide report came just days before the U.S. Congress was expected to vote on Thursday on a landmark trade pact signed last year and a human rights act that would require Hanoi to make substantial progress on several human rights issues before qualifying for additional U.S. aid.
Human rights activists have called for the U.S. Congress not to ratify the trade pact until Hanoi's rights record improves.
In March, overseas supporters said a member of the outlawed branch of the Hoa Hoa Buddhist sect burned herself to death in a protest in a village in southern Vietnam. Later that month, police said they had foiled a mass immolation by Hoa Hao Buddhists in a park in Ho Chi Minh City.
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.
22:33 09-04-01
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