Thich Quang Do The Oslo Freedom Forum interviews Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Quang Do on location at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Mihn City where he is being held under house arrest. In this video, The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do speaks about his peaceful fight for freedom and democracy under the repressive communist government of Vietnam.

About

Thich Quang Do is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, religious leader, and outspoken critic of the Vietnamese government. He is the head of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) and has been involved with its leadership since the 1960s. Once the largest Buddhist organization of southern Vietnam, the UBCV came under systematic persecution by the government after 1975 for its involvement in the human rights movement; its leaders, including Thích Quang Do, were arrested and sent into domestic exile in 1982. He returned to Saigon in March of 1992, when he was again arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for documenting the government’s oppression of the UBCV. He was released from prison in August of 1998 and placed under house arrest in 2001 for his continued activism. In 2006, Thích Quang Do won the Rafto Prize.