Overview of the meeting

The event was chaired by Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng, and attended by Chairman of the GCRA Vũ Hoài Bắc, Chairpersons of the GCRA Trần Thị Minh Nga, Nguyễn Ánh Chức and Nguyễn Tiến Trọng, former Vice Chairman of the GCRA Bùi Thanh Hà, representatives from concerning ministries, several experts, scholars, and heads of the GCRA’s departments.

During the conference, participants gave many comments on the two draft decrees, focusing on the interpretation of terms; registration of collective religious practices; changes of location or representative of religious groups of foreigners lawfully residing in Vietnam; the suspension and restoration of operations for religious organizations, affiliated religious organizations and religious training institutions; online religious practices; administrative violations, sanctioning forms and levels and remedial measures; competent authorities to make minutes and impose penalties, etc.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng speaks at the meeting

Concluding the event, Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng asked the drafting board and the editing group of the two draft decrees to gather comments raised by the conference participants for early completing the two draft decrees and submitting to the Government as scheduled.

As reported, the draft decree to replace Decree No. 162/2017/ND-CP detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Belief and Religion consist of six chapters with 33 articles. The draft decree on sanction of violations in the field of belief and religion consists of four chapters with 51 articles. The two draft decrees have been posted for gathering comments from the general public on websites of the Government, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the GCRA.

AK