The seminar themed “Several Theoretical and Practical Issues in the Protection of the Freedom of Belief and Religion for those Serving Imprisonment Terms at Prisons” aimed to gather theoretical and practical groundings for ensuring the right to freedom of belief and religion of those convicted and taken to prisons, as well as possible impacts by the implementation of the religious law.

The seminar is part of the preparation for the implementation of the Law of Belief and Religion by the Ministry of Public Security. The law that will take effect early next year has stipulated that a person who is illegally arrested, held in custody, temporarily detained, charged with a criminal offence, investigated, prosecuted and brought to trial or subject to judicial enforcement, or a person taken to a rehabilitation center, has the right to profession of religious beliefs.

Concluding the seminar, Major General of the general police department Nguyễn Văn Lý emphasized that the existing law on judicial enforcement and guiding documents for its implementation has not mentioned and clarified this religious right for the convict, so such legal texts need to be early revised and supplemented in order to ensure the conformity with  the law on belief and religion enacted last November.

PTT