Background
Thích Quảng Độ was born in the Thái Bình Province of North Vietnam, at 14 he became a monk.
Thích Quảng Độ was born in the Thái Bình Province of North Vietnam, at 14 he became a monk.
In 2002, he was awarded the Homo Homini Award for human rights activism by the Czechoslovakian group People In Need, which he shared with Thích Huyền Quang and Thadeus Nguyễn Văn Lý. At age 17 he witnessed his religious master executed by the revolutionary People's Tribunal. Political opposition
As a result of imprisonment, Độ struggled with tuberculosis before having a lung operation.
In 1975 Vietnam was under communist control, and the UBCV was once again unwelcome in Vietnam.
As a result, the UBCV facilities were seized, and documents burned. He spent 20 months at the Phan Dang Luu Prison in solitary confinement, before he was trialed and released in December, 1978.
Quảng Độ would spend the next 10 years in exile in the village of Vu Doai. Yet again in 1995, while attempting to expose government abuse of the UBCV, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.
Thích Quảng Độ became the President of the UBCV’s Institute for the Dissemination of the Dharma in 1999, meaning that he was the second-ranking UBCV dignitary after patriarch Thich Huyen Quang.
In 2001, he received the Hellman-Hammet Award for persecuted writers. In 2003, Thích Quảng Độ was honored with the Homo Homini Award, by the people in need foundation. In 2002, he was awarded the Homo Homini Award for human rights activism by the Czechoslovakian group People in Need, which he shared with Thích Huyền Quảng and Nguyễn Văn Lý. In 2006, Thích Quảng Độ was awarded the Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize, in recognition of "personal courage and perseverance through three decades of peaceful opposition against the communist regime in Vietnam, and as a symbol for the growing democracy movement”. Thích Quảng Độ was unable to the receive the award, as the government prevented him from attending the ceremony In 2006, Thích Quảng Độ was also awarded the Democracy Courage Tribute by the World Movement for Democracy. In January 2008, the Europe-based magazine A Different View chose Độ as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy. Others in the list include Nelson Mandela, Lech Wałęsa, Corazon Aquino, and Aung San Suu Kyi. 9 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
