(Compass) - During Easter weekend, April 10 and 11, Montagnards in Vietnam?s Central Highlands attempted to stage public demonstrations to call attention to harsh injustices they suffer at the hands of communist authorities and ethnic Vietnamese settlers. Vietnamese security forces dressed in civilian clothes attacked the demonstrators, using weapons such as clubs with embedded nails, iron bars, chains, hoes and machetes. An unknown number were killed, hundreds were injured, and many are missing. The Vietnamese government later admitted that the demonstrations involved thousands of people. They mounted an aggressive propaganda campaign to justify its repression of the demonstrators. This week, government officials publicly blamed the U.S.-based organization Montagnard Foundation Inc. (MFI) for organizing the demonstrations. Officials vowed to punish anyone inciting further unrest in the Central Highlands. Human rights organizations said that while MFI may have acted unwisely, the organization should not become the government?s scapegoat for the heavy repression at the root of the unrest. One thing is certain: the controversy is sure to cause greater hardship for the Montagnard Protestant church.

(Mercury News) - Family members of a U.S.-based exile - accused by Vietnam of being a terrorist - were required to participate in public "self-criticism" sessions in the communist country's restive Central Highlands region, an official said Wednesday. Five relatives of Kok Ksor, including his mother, publicly admitted to "wrongdoings" during a May 26 session before their village of Bon Roai in Gia Lai province, said Nay Hem, a local official. Ksor, who heads the South Carolina-based Montagnard Foundation, has been accused by Hanoi of organizing several mass uprisings in the Central Highlands, including recent Easter weekend protests that drew an estimated 10,000 ethnic minority villagers. The village official said the five family members confessed they were directed by Ksor to attend demonstrations and incite other villagers to protest. None of them were detained or arrested, he said.

(MFI) - President of the Montagnard Foundation Mr. Kok Ksor states:
?This is not the first time the Vietnamese authorities have committed such brutality against my innocent relatives. In May 2001 the security police first arrested my mother ?Ksor H?Ble? who is over 80 years old. Because she refused to denounce MFI?s human rights activities the police beat her. She suffered broken ribs and was admitted to hospital. The security forces then threatened her over and over they were going to kill her. Recently this year in May 2004 the Vietnamese police also had my half-brother handcuffed, tied to a flag-pole and beaten publicly on May 10, in the Ceo Reo District. I confirm that my mother, who also attended the Easter Demonstrations and got back home only after her son was publicly beaten, and my sister in law were forced by the Vietnamese Government to denounce me and to admit their ?wrongdoings? publicly. MFI also received reports that their forced denunciations have been broadcasted by the Vietnamese Television.I plead for the international community to urgently intervene on behalf of my mother, my family and for all the Montagnard Degar people inside Vietnam who suffer under Vietnam?s policies of repression. We are not terrorists as Vietnam claims but indigenous people who only want to live peacefully on our ancestral lands without the fear of being driven into poverty and persecuted for being Christian. I also plead to the international community to beware of Vietnam?s false claims that Montagnard Christians are terrorists. The UN cannot allow succeeding Hanoi?s underhanded plan to suspend the UN consultative status of human rights NGO?s (who support Montagnard human rights) such as the Transnational Radical Party. The UN must be kept free from intimidation tactics by repressive regimes like Vietnam.We ask international Monitors be granted access into the Central Highlands as recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and that Cambodia abides by the Refugee convention by ceasing the forced repatriation of our refugees back to Vietnam. The situation facing our people is extremely serious and the latest Human Rights Watch report of 28 May, 2004 called for an international investigation into the 2004 Easter killings of our people, stating: ?Fearing torture and arrest by Vietnamese troops, hundreds of Montagnards in the Central Highlands have resorted to hiding in village graves or pits dug in the forest, Human Rights Watch said today in a briefing paper. ? Unless urgent action is taken many more Montagnards will suffer and die.

(MFI) - On May 14, 2004 Vietnamese police went to the village of Plei Blang ?3?, to arrest Puih Hyi because he was a preacher for Degar Christians who did not want to follow the officially recognized Protestant Church. Puih Hyi was fearful police would torture him so he escaped to the jungle. 14 days later he went back home because he could not cross the Cambodian border as Vietnamese and Cambodian police sealed the border off and would arrest and possibly kill him. On May 29, 2004 the Vietnamese police arrested him at his house, handcuffed him and beat him from his house along the way to the police station in the district of Ia Grai.  The police beat him and tortured him repeatedly until they broke his skull and he died on May 31, 2004.  Then the police tore up his shirt, made a rope and hung him like he had committed suicide.  The police told his family that he had hung him self with his own shirt but the family examined the body and found out that his skull was smashed. In another incident, at approximately 8:00 AM on May 14, 2004 the Vietnamese police arrested a Degar Christian at his village of Plei Khop, The reason for his arrest was that he refused to follow the officially recognized Protestant Church. The police handcuffed him and beat him.  Blood was coming out of his nose, mouth and ears.  He is now imprisoned in the district of Ia Grai and we don?t know if he is alive or dead. 

(VOA) - Cambodia will ease restrictions preventing some Vietnamese refugees from gaining asylum in the kingdom. The decision means the Montagnards cannot be forced out of Cambodia against their will. The Cambodian government says it is softening its stance and will allow the United Nations to extend refugee status and protection to the Montagnards, a primarily Christian tribal group from Vietnam. The Montagnards fled to Cambodia after accusing the communist Vietnamese government of religious repression and land confiscation. Last April, Vietnamese security forces cracked down on a Montagnard political demonstration, killing several and forcing hundreds to flee. Under the new agreement, the United Nations can issue international identification cards and relocate the refugees to non-hostile third countries.  

(Asia Pacific News) - Human Rights Watch calls for release of pastor. "The Vietnamese government should immediately release the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, a human rights defender and activist leader of the banned Mennonite church in Vietnam", the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement received Friday. "Quang's arrest appears to be part of the Vietnamese government's mounting repression of activists who promote human rights or religious freedom," said Dinah PoKempner, general counsel at Human Rights Watch.

(Montagnard Foundation) - Y-Rung Nie who was born in 1968 was from the village of Buon Kna, district of Cu Mgar, Province of Daklak. On April 10-11, 2004 Y-Rung Nie participated in the peaceful demonstration and then went back to his village. He thought the Vietnamese government would not hurt him but he was wrong. On May 2, 2004 the Vietnamese police from Hanoi went to his house, arrested him, and took him away. He was executed and this is how the police killed him: because he is a Christian, they made a cross and nailed him to it. They drove 4 nails on his feet, 4 nails on his hands, 1 nail on his chest and 2 nails on his head. Five days later, the police brought a coffin to his family and told his family that they had killed him because he followed Kok Ksor and the Montagnard Foundation. The police wanted his family to go collect his dead body at the nearby coffee plantation. The police threatened Y-Rung Nie?s family not to tell anyone of this killing or they will come back to their village and kill them too. On 9^th May 2004 Y-Rung Nie?s family went to the coffee plantation and picked up his corpse brought him back to their village and buried him. Some of the villagers have reported to us that they also saw the cross where Y-Rung Nie was crucified in the coffee plantations this information comes direct from witnesses inside Vietnam. 

(Reuters) - Australian embassy officials deny its diplomats have made public remarks about a visit to Vietnam's restive Central Highlands to assess human rights conditions. The Vietnam News Agency reported on Saturday that Australian Foreign Ministry officials "acknowledged that there were no signs of violation of human rights and discrimination in Gia Lai [province]". The report added the officials had said "genuine equality reigns among the community of ethnic groups". An embassy official says a group of seven embassy and visiting officials visited Gia Lai and Daklak provinces on the weekend. "We have made no public comment and have given no interviews," the official said. It is the second time this year diplomats have openly disagreed with state media reports on visits to the communist country's coffee-growing highlands. Travel to the area by envoys and foreign media is restricted and tightly supervised. Four ambassadors who went to the region in May disavowed comments attributed to them that praised the development in Daklak province. The two provinces saw an outbreak of demonstrations in April by hill tribe minorities known loosely as Montagnards, many of whom practise Protestantism. Human rights groups say the unrest was over land and religious rights, and were a repeat of larger protests in February 2001 that the Vietnamese Government quelled with military forces. The Vietnamese Government blames overseas groups for instigating the unrest. Some of the minority tribes accuse the Government of seizing ancestral lands and of discrimination against them in favour of the majority Kinh population. The region is among the poorest in Vietnam.

(ABC Radio Australia News) - The United Nations refugee agency has granted asylum to 12 Montagnard minority hill tribe people who fled Vietnam's Central Highlands, crossed Cambodia and ended up in Thailand. A spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok, says the 12 will soon be sent to a third country. Human rights groups say Montagnards are being persecuted by Vietnamese authorities. After mass protests and a clampdown by authorities in 2001, some 1,000 Montagnards fled through the jungle to Cambodia, where they were housed in refugee camps before being granted asylum in the United States. After another protest last April, a steady trickle of refugees has been entering Cambodia.  [ICC featured the plight of the Montagnard Christians in the June 2004 newsletter.]

(Compass) - Since his arrest on June 8, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang has become the victim of a propaganda campaign. Vietnamese authorities have been spreading misinformation through Vietnamese diplomats, newspaper reports and a government website. Arrested for allegedly ?inciting other people to resist an officer doing his official duty,? Quang is being accused on government websites and in the official press of crudity, sexual immorality, and ?hooligan behavior.? Quang, a Mennonite, has consistently documented abuses and exposed authorities who violate Vietnam?s laws regarding religious freedom and other human rights. A colleague of Pastor Quang believes that ?they [Vietnam?s authorities] are going make a hard test-case? of him. Quang?s whereabouts remain unknown, raising serious concerns for his well-being.

(AsiaNews/SCMP) - Prime Minister Hun Sen will consider sending troops into Cambodia's forested northeast to root out more than 200 Montagnards, a Christian minority in Vietnam, who have fled country's central highlands after police put down protests seeking land and religious rights, in April. The refugees have been living off tubers, rainwater in Cambodia's malaria-ridden jungles for months. Local hill tribe sources have told The Cambodia Daily that up to 250 Montagnards may be hiding in the border region and that several have fallen seriously ill. Groups of the Montagnards have been photographed and interviewed by reporters from the English-language The Cambodia Daily newspaper, but the Hun Sen government has alternately denied their existence, called them illegal immigrants or accused them of plotting a separatist movement. "Crossing the border to Cambodia is not an option for the refugees," the New York-based agency said. "Both Cambodia and Vietnam have intensified the security presence along the border and Cambodia continues to forcibly return any Montagnard asylum seekers who cross the border." The Vietnamese government has denied the existence of Montagnard refugees and barred international agencies and reporters from entering the central highlands at the time of the protests.

(Reuters) - United Nations refugee officials will visit northeast Cambodia on Wednesday to check reports that dozens of Christian "Montagnard" asylum-seekers from neighbouring Vietnam are hiding in the jungle.

The visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will be the first trip to the remote region since Cambodia's government forced it to shut down its provincial offices last year under pressure from Vietnam.

"We believe there are some Montagnards up there. That is why we proposed to the government to go and see the situation," Thamrongsak Meechubot of UNHCR in Phnom Penh said on Tuesday.

A steady stream of Montagnards -- minority hilltribesmen who practise an unorthodox form of Protestanism -- has been trickling over the border after land rights and religious protests in April in Vietnam's coffee-growing Central Highlands.

Nearly 100 have completed the difficult trip to the UNHCR headquarters in Phnom Penh from the remote northeastern provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri.

It is impossible to say how many more have either died in the jungle or been turned back by Cambodian troops. There have been several reports of Cambodian soldiers rounding up Montagnards and handing them back to Vietnamese police for a bounty.

"We have a lot of information from the media along with pictures of Montagnards. That is strong evidence that we need to go and address the urgent needs for those people," Thamrongsak said.

Around 1,000 Montagnards who fled Vietnam to U.N. refugee camps in Cambodia in 2001 have been granted permanent asylum in the United States.

(ICC) ? The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Viet Nam Human Rights Act (H.R. 1587) Monday (July 19) night.  The bill rescinds future U.S. non-humanitarian aid to the government of Viet Nam.  The condition under which aid can be restored are that the President can certify that Viet Nam has ?made substantial progress toward releasing all political and religious prisoners from imprisonment, including respecting freedom of religion and the human rights of members of ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands or elsewhere in Viet Nam?and neither any official of the Government of Viet Nam nor any entity owned by such Government was complicit in a severe form of trafficking in persons.?  The bill also made it U.S. policy to relocate Montagnard refugees and overcome government jamming of Radio Free Asia.

(ABC Radio Australia) - Vietnam says ethnic minority Montagnards seeking refuge in Cambodia have left the nation illegally and will be forcibly returned if they are not accepted by a third country within one month. Despite confirmation from aid workers in Cambodia, Vietnam's foreign ministry says it has no information verifying the presence of Montagnards in the country. However, the ministry says even if there are Montagnards who have crossed the border to Cambodia, they have done so illegally and should not be seen as political asylum seekers. A Cambodian human rights group says 123 Montagnards have been lured from their hiding places in the country's jungles by United Nations officials. They escaped to Cambodia after Vietnamese security forces put down anti-government protests over Easter against religious persecution and land confiscation. The New York-based Human Rights Watch says hundreds of Montagnards were wounded and dozens were killed in the Central Highlands over the April 10-11 weekend. However, the Vietnamese government says only two people died.

(Compass) - Seven weeks after his arrest in a police raid on his home in Ho Chi Minh City, Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang has been allowed his first visitors. The unexpected visit occurred after Quang?s wife wrote a letter to senior Vietnamese officials seeking permission to see her husband. A university student and the mother of three small children, Mrs. Quang explained that the confiscation of all the family?s money in the June 8 police raid when her husband was arrested has placed her in very difficult straits. The following day, officials summoned Mrs. Quang and Mennonite evangelist Nguyen Thanh Tam to the police station for interrogation, allowing them to speak with Quang briefly. They said the jailed pastor looked thin and sickly and had an ?ill color.? Sources in Vietnam say that authorities are trying to build a legal case against Quang for possessing and distributing materials harmful to the state. This crime, if classified as severe, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

(Montagnard Foundation) - Sources from inside Vietnam reported to us on July 9, 2004, the Vietnamese communist government forced Montagnard Degar villagers of Buon Tul, district of Buon Don, province of Daklak to come out of their houses so that they can make a movie portraying the demonstration last April in order to show to the United Nations and other members of the international community.  During the filming on July 7, 2004, they forced the villagers to carry machetes, knives, spears, clubs and many other crude weapons and then forced them to walk and shout like they are demonstrating with violence against the government of Vietnam. They threatened to kill anyone who refuses their order. The government used soldiers and police to force the villagers to pretend that they demonstrated against the government in violent way in five districts of Cu Mgar, Buon Ho, Buon Don and Dak Nong. 

(VOA News) - Vietnam has jailed nine members of an ethnic/religious minority group, Montagnard Christians,  to terms of five to 12 years for inciting protests in the Central Highlands earlier this year. The nine were arrested on April 10 while taking part in protests against land confiscation and religious persecution of minority people known as Montagnards. The Daklak People's Court convicted the defendants of causing public disorder and sabotaging national unity. The ruling came after a two-day trial. Human rights groups say thousands of [Montagnards] protested against repression of their religious and land rights for two days in April. The groups say the Vietnamese government used force to stop the demonstrations. Dozens of Montagnards have since fled to Cambodia.

(Compass) - Government authorities continue to apply unrelenting pressure on tribal Christians in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The most recent phase of the long-standing conflict commenced in April 2004, when thousands of Montagnards joined protests against the confiscation of tribal lands and the severe repression of the Christian faith. The government subsequently sent a special ?peace corps? to the poverty-stricken region. But the corps really serves as ?spies and guards,? according to sources in Vietnam. After its arrival, eight men in Dak Lak province were arrested and severely beaten. Church sources report that eight men were killed in Gia Lai province; four were shot and four were beaten to death. In July, 198 Montagnard refugees were airlifted from the Cambodian border province of Ratanakiri to Phnom Penh. One Vietnamese source told Compass that the rescue operation could encourage others to flee Vietnam. ?It?s hard to describe the desperation people are feeling,? he said. ?Vietnamese authorities tell everyone that the highlands are a place of peace, happiness and ethnic equality. But in reality they make it a hell for the Montagnards.?

(VOA News) - The United Nations refugee agency will soon begin its second airlift of Vietnamese hill people who fled their country into Cambodia's remote jungles. Beginning Saturday, the agency will airlift 58 of the so-called Montagnards to Phnom Penh, where they will be assessed for possible resettlement in a third country. Last month, an estimated 200 of the Christian Montagnards who emerged from hiding were taken to the Cambodian capital. U.N. officials are continuing to search for dozens more Montagnards, whom agency workers believe may be hiding out. They fled anti-government protests in their home country last April. Vietnam insists the asylum seekers left the country illegally. It accuses the U.N. agency of luring them across the border.

(Compass) - On August 23, the mother of Mennonite evangelists Nguyen Huu Nghia and Nguyen Thanh Nhan was allowed to visit her imprisoned sons for the first time since their arrest in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on March 2. It took nearly six months for the brothers? family to get permission for the visit, despite a Vietnamese law stipulating that prisoners must be allowed visitors within the first 30 days of incarceration. Authorities have allowed visitors for three more of the ?Mennonite Six,? as the prisoners have come to be known. Pham Ngoc Thach, Nguyen Van Phuong and the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang have received family members in the respective Ho Chi Minh City police jails where they are incarcerated while awaiting charges. However, officials have denied visits for female evangelist Le Thi Hong Lien, arrested in early July, on the grounds that she is ?hard-headed and uncooperative.? According to sources, authorities are working hard to put the Mennonite Six on trial as soon as possible, perhaps by early September.

(Compass) - The Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (VEF) has just released a statement on Vietnam?s new Ordinance on Religion, due to take effect on November 15.  The VEF is an organization of about 30 unregistered house church organizations representing many hundreds of house churches. The August 30 letter states, ?This Ordinance will create many problems and disadvantages for the church, especially for our gatherings for worship. At the same time, it is likely to permanently outlaw our house church organizations, none of which have been recognized since 1975. Many articles in this Ordinance will also provide a legal basis for local authorities to hinder and persecute the church.? It is a courageous statement, especially in that it asks prayer for the government of Vietnam to withdraw the Ordinance issued on June 18, and to stop all forms of persecution and hindrances to the church?s activities.

(Compass) ? The Rev. Tran Mai, a prominent Vietnamese house church leader, was arrested on August 29 and held for eight days of interrogation. He was released on September 6, but given orders to appear for further questioning at the Ministry of Public Security. Mai was arrested as he crossed a land border into Vietnam after several months abroad. He was allowed an initial brief phone call to his wife, but the police refused to tell his wife where he was being held or the charges against him. During his brief imprisonment Mai was shifted to three different locations and questioned about his activities abroad. He was also questioned regarding his association with two other prominent house church leaders who are currently in police custody: the Rev. Bui Van Ba, arrested on August 18, 2003, and the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, arrested on June 8.

(Forum 18) - Believers have responded warily to the new religious ordinance which codifies the state's policies on religious affairs, though implementation will test if it makes religious practice easier or more difficult. The ordinance, adopted by the National Assembly's standing committee in June, comes into force on 15 November. Officials have already met religious representatives to discuss the content. The ordinance lays greater stress on believers "abiding by law" rather than needing specific permission for many activities, but still reflects official suspicion of religious groups. Registered groups will need annual permission to hold regular meetings in their own buildings, while conferences in other premises will require specific permission. Unclear is whether home meetings are allowed. Religious activities and even beliefs can be banned. Prisoners are banned from religious activity, while former prisoners need permission. Local officials must approve assignment of clergy, while religious groups' contacts with abroad remain under official control. The ordinance does not mention the return of confiscated places of worship. Three Catholic priests described the ordinance as "a tool of the state to oppress people of faith".

(BP) -The communist government of Vietnam responded angrily Sept. 20 to its designation as a ?country of particular concern? by the U.S. State Department. In a statement issued from Hanoi, Vietnam?s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the State Department?s findings on religious persecution in the Southeast Asian country as ?erroneous.? Foreign Minister Nguyen De Nien also sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell to protest the decision of the United States to place Vietnam on its persecution watch list. The foreign minister was reported to have complained that the State Department?s report on the deteriorating human rights situation in Vietnam was based on ?biased information? and was an ?inaccurate reflection of Vietnam?s actual situation.? But information has poured out of Vietnam since 2001 that ethnic minority or Montagnard Christians in the Central and Northwest Highlands of the country have endured severe persecution for holding church services in homes, acts that the government claims are subversive. Several ethnic minority Christians have been beaten to death for refusing to recant their faith and divulge the identities of other Christians.

Hanoi (AsiaNews/Ucan) - The Vietnam government defended its policy of religious freedom in reaction to the U.S. State Department's recent decision to add Vietnam to its list of countries that it says violate the right to religious freedom.

"We strongly protest the decision of the U.S. State Department to list Vietnam as one of the 'countries of particular concern' in its annual report on religious freedom," said Le Dung, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, in a response televised throughout the country.

In the U.S. State Department's sixth annual International Religious Freedom Report, released Sept. 15, Vietnam is cited in that category for the first time. It is grouped with China, Cuba, Laos, Myanmar and North Korea under the heading "Totalitarian or Authoritarian Actions to Control Religious Belief or Practice." Dung said Vietnam "respects and protects freedom of belief and religion of all citizens," which is stated in the Ordinance on Beliefs and Religion adopted June 18 by the Standing Committee of Vietnam's National Assembly. The ordinance is scheduled to take effect Nov. 15. Dung said the U.S. decision is "based on erroneous information that does not reflect the true religious situation in Vietnam." However, Reverend Pham Dinh Nhan, head of Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship, asserts the ordinance "will create many problems and disadvantages" for fellowship members, "especially for our worship gatherings." The Evangelical leader said the religion ordinance is "likely to permanently outlaw our house-church organizations, none of which have been recognized since 1975." He added that many articles in the ordinance also provide a legal basis for local authorities to hinder and persecute Churches.

American Legion National Commander Calls for Senate Vote on Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2004
Tuesday September 28

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The top official of the world's largest veterans service organization is calling on members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to bring to a vote a bill that aims to improve Vietnam's worsening record on human rights and religious freedom."Severe religious persecution is standard practice in Vietnam, and it is worsening," said Thomas P. Cadmus of Michigan, national commander of the 2.7- million member American Legion. "Hundreds of Christians, Buddhists and followers of other faiths are in jail today, or under house arrest without charges, for peacefully following beliefs that are not authorized by the government."The Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2004, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., passed by a 323-45 vote in the House on July 19. The Senate version was introduced by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Sept. 9. It was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where it has yet to be considered. A similar measure passed by a 410-1 landslide in the House in 2001 but stalled in committee after it was referred to the Senate.

(Compass) - Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, prominent rights activist and general secretary of the Mennonite church in Vietnam, is scheduled to be tried on November 12. His wife was informed of this on Saturday, October 30. Irregularities and inconsistencies continue to surround the case. Mrs. Quang was denied the bi-weekly visit scheduled for October 15 and went daily after that to try to see her husband. She was finally told on October 22 that she would not be allowed to see him unless she agreed to try to convince him to admit to his ?crime.? Quang was arrested on June 8 on the charge of ?inciting others to resist officers of the law doing their duty.? Meanwhile, constant heavy pressure is being placed on Montagnard Mennonites in the Central Highlands. On October 22, Human Rights Watch released news of the September 24 destruction of a Mennonite church, office and home of Pastor Chinh. Compass has received reports and photos of other concurrent abuses.

(UPI) - Vietnamese authorities arrested four Mennonite Christian clergymen at the weekend, subjecting them to humiliation, beatings and demands to renounce their faith The Montagnard clergymen told Radio Free Asia's Vietnamese service that police and members of a local people's committee in Gia Lai province in central Vietnam had summoned three of them to local government offices Saturday, where they were asked to sign papers renouncing their faith. Two of the men signed the papers and were permitted to return home, but the other two refused and were detained, handcuffed, and beaten. The next day police denounced the four at a village meeting, stating they would be jailed and fined unless they renounced the Mennonite church.

(Compass) - Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, ordered the wife the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, a Mennonite pastor imprisoned since June 8, to appear at a neighborhood ?review? meeting tonight. Sources in Vietnam say the purpose of the meeting is for the Quangs? neighbors, prompted by police, to complain about church services that continue to take place at the Quang home, despite numerous warnings that such meetings are illegal. Observers believe the summons to be part of a police harassment campaign against associates of Nguyen Hong Quang, scheduled to be tried with five of his co-workers on November 12. A source in Vietnam said today that Christians are fasting and praying concerning the trial. ?Many Christians in Vietnam are watching the trial closely and see it as key indicator on whether Vietnam might change its repressive religion policy. Most are not very optimistic,? the source said.

(AsiaNews/Agencies) ? Nguyen Hong Quang, a Mennonite pastor, was sentenced to three years in prison "for activities against local authorities". Ho Chi Minh City?s People?s Court convicted five more people to prison terms ranging from nine months to two years. The trial, which lasted only one day, was closed to foreign journalists. Rev Nguyen Hong Quang was arrested on June 8 whilst hosting a scout meeting in his house in a Hanoi suburb. Trained as a lawyer, he is secretary general of the Mennonite Church?which the Vietnamese government considers illegal?, a human rights activist, defender of religious freedom, and an advocate for the rights of the Montagnard minority, farmers and political prisoners. Judicial authorities said that he was not arrested for religious reasons, but because "he was inciting the population to resist public security officers". The charge dates back to an incident on March 2, when Nguyen Hong Quang led tens of people in a protest against the incarceration of four Mennonite clergymen. Rev Nguyen?s sentence is the latest in a series or repressive steps taken by the authorities against Mennonites and other Christians in Vietnam. Last month, the police demolished a Mennonite chapel in Kontum province. According to Human Right Watch, this action highlights the government?s increasingly repressive policy vis-à-vis religious freedom.

 (Compass) - The People?s Court of Ho Chi Minh City handed out harsh sentences to six Vietnamese Mennonite church workers in a four-hour trial which ended at noon today. Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and five colleagues were charged with ?resisting officers of the law while doing their duty? in connection with a March 2 incident involving two undercover government operatives. The court sentenced Quang, general secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, to three years in prison. Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach received a two-year sentence. Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Nguyen Thanh Nhan, Miss Le Thi Hong Lien and church elder Nguyen Hieu Nghia received sentences ranging from nine to 12 months. A Vietnamese lawyer who asked to remain anonymous said, ?On the basis of the legal issues and the realties of the case, we affirm that Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and his fellow workers are not criminals guilty of the charges brought against them.?

(Christian Post) - A new law went into effect yesterday that could perpetuate and justify severe persecution of the churches of Vietnam by authorities. The proposed law on religion, which was issued on June 18, purportedly guarantees religious freedom in one of its articles but uses most of the remaining 40 for detailing a long series of complicated regulations to insure close state management of religious activity. "[The Ordinance] will create many problems and disadvantages for the church, especially for our gatherings for worship,? the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (VEF) wrote in a statement released on Aug. 30. ?At the same time, it is likely to permanently outlaw our house church organizations, none of which have been recognized since 1975. Many articles in this ordinance will also provide a legal basis for local authorities to hinder and persecute the church."

http://www.christianpost.com/dbase/missions/1231/section/1.htm

(AgapePress) - A representative of a ministry to the persecuted Church says Christianity is growing at a rapid rate in Vietnam, despite increased harassment from government officials. This past Sunday marked the annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, and the observance could not come at a more critical time for believers in Vietnam. Earlier this year, more than 100 Christians were killed by government forces during a protest in the highlands of that Communist-controlled country. Jerry Dykstra of Open Doors USA says Christianity is spreading, even as persecution increases in Vietnam. There, he says, 1.2 million evangelical Christians are part of a movement that is "just exploding for the Lord," even in the midst of oppression. "House churches are exploding," Dykstra says. "I mean there is tremendous growth of Christianity in Vietnam. There's one house church where we've gotten reports that there are 2,000 members." The Open Doors spokesman says it is important for believers in the United States to contact the Bush administration and remind their government officials of the human rights abuses being inflicted on Christians by Vietnamese authorities.

 (Compass) - Le Thi Hong Lien, the sole woman among six Mennonite church workers sentenced to prison in Vietnam last Friday, is hospitalized with a ?mental disease,? according to prison officials. She was arrested on June 30 and sentenced to 12 months in prison on November 12. At the trial, co-defendant Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang was so alarmed at Lien?s appearance that he asked the court to take her immediately for a medical examination. The judge refused but did agree to allow her to remain seated for the proceedings. Lien?s parents attempted to visit her in prison twice this week, but prison officials prevented access. Her parents subsequently filed a report stating, ?During her time in prison, our daughter was seriously abused and beaten.? Just 21 years old, Miss Lien had been a zealous church worker, specializing in teaching the Bible to small children.

HANOI, Vietnam, NOV. 24, 2004 (Zenit.org <http://www.zenit.org>).- A court in Vietnam's restive Central Highlands sentenced 17 Montagnard tribesmen to up to 10 years in prison for undermining national security and unity during an Easter weekend protest. The Montagnards, most of whom are Christians, are subjected to persecution by the government. This year, on the eve of the Easter celebrations, a peaceful manifestation in Buon Ma Thuot, capital of the province of Dac Lak, was violently suppressed. Area tribes were protesting against the government's restrictions of their Christian faith and the confiscation of their ancestral lands. They also called for development of their region, among the poorest in Vietnam. Official sources announced that last week, in three separate trials in Dac Nong province, the provincial People's Court handed down prison terms of three to 10 years to 17 Montagnards.

(Compass) - The People?s Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City will hear the appeals of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach of the Mennonite Church on February 2. Quang and Thach received three-year and two-year sentences respectively - the longest sentences among six Mennonite workers sentenced on November 12, 2004 - for charges of ?resisting persons doing official duty.? Meanwhile, co-defendants Nguyen Thanh Nhan and Nguyen Hieu Nghia, released in early December, have written accounts outlining the severe abuse they suffered during their imprisonment. ?These accounts ... are heart-rending reports of non-stop beatings, deprivation and humiliation because of their Christian faith,? a source told Compass. The torture and abuse that Miss Le Thi Hong Lien, 21, suffered has led to her complete mental and physical breakdown, sources say.

(ABC Radio Australia) - Vietnam, Cambodia and the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, have signed an agreement to resettle or repatriate an estimated 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese currently in Cambodia. The chief of the UNHCR delegation, Erika Feller, says the memorandum of understanding lays the basis for some of the refugees to be resettled in a third country, and for others to be repatriated to Vietnam if they want to. Ms Feller says the accord covers this group of refugees only, and will not necessarily apply to members of the Montagnard minority who may flee Vietnam in the future. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious persecution.

(ANS) - Two Christian workers sentenced by Vietnam authorities will have to wait for the outcome of their appeal.  The Ho Chi Minh City People?s Court has announced a delay in the appeal of Reverend Nguyen Hong Quang and evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, which was originally set for February 2.  Rev Quang?s wife was informed of the postponement by her husband?s defence attorney on January 27. The court is yet to announce a new date. Following the trial on 12 November 2004, Rev Quang and Mr Thach received a three-year and a two-year sentence respectively on charges of ?inciting others to resist persons doing their official duty.? Rev Quang, a well known human rights activist and promoter of religious freedom, and General Secretary of the unregistered Vietnam Mennonite Church, was arrested on 8 June 2004 in the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City by 30 security police. He was charged with ?inciting others to resist persons doing their official duty? in connection with an incident involving the discovery of undercover police spies in Quang?s home church on 2 March 2004. This incident resulted in the arrests of Mr Nguyen Hieu Nghia, Mr Nguyen Thanh Nhan, Mr Nguyen Van Phuong and Mr Pham Ngoc Thach on charges of resisting persons doing their official duty. Both Rev Quang and Mr Thach are being held in the Chi Hoa Prison in Ho Chi Minh City.

(ANS) - Vietnam?s Prime Minister, Phan Van Khai, will allow outlawed Protestant "house churches? in the restive Central Highlands to operate if they will renounce connections to a former guerrilla group that Hanoi has accused of organizing massive anti-government protests, state-controlled media reported on Saturday. According to a story just released by the Associated Press (AP), under the decree issued Friday, the house churches, which had been banned by the government, will be allowed to operate if they revoke all ties to FULRO, the French acronym for the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, a guerrilla group that fought alongside the Americans during the Vietnam War, said the Liberated Saigon newspaper. ?The underground churches are operated by followers of Dega Protestantism, an unsanctioned form of evangelical Protestantism that Vietnam has condemned as being linked to a separatist movement,? the AP story stated.  "If the religious followers there have pure religious needs, commit to abiding by the law, do not work for the reactionary FULRO, and have no connection to Dega Protestantism, the local governments will create conditions for them to carry out normal religious activities at home or at suitable places in their villages," the newspaper quoted the decree as saying. The AP story continued by saying, ?The prime minister called for local governments to 'seriously and effectively implement these specific tasks,'" but it was unclear exactly when the decree would take effect. The decree also said, "Protestant followers in Vietnam's northern mountainous provinces will be allowed to practice their religion."

"However, the ruling calls for severe punishments against illegal religious activities, and local governments will publicize the names of those who disguise themselves as Protestant clergy to engage in anti-government activities," the newspaper said.

(ANS) - Hundreds of Montagnards have fled Vietnam for Cambodia to escape ongoing persecution by the Vietnamese Government. However, it appears that option is no longer available for the Montagnards, the indigenous people of Vietnam?s Central Highlands. The Montagnard Foundation (www.montagnard-foundation.org) has received information that Cambodian police are continuing to arrest and forcibly return Montagnard asylum seekers back to Vietnamese police for cash bounties. According to a news release from the Montagnard Foundation, the latest incidents involve 21 Montagnard Degar refugees.

Montagnard Repatriation Agreement is Flawed

Montagnard Foundation

BACKGROUND: Since 2001 thousands of Montagnards have fled to Cambodia to escape persecution by the Vietnamese government. In turn Vietnamese authorities have been hunting down these refugees on the border and pressuring Cambodia to forcibly return them. Human Rights Watch has however, confirmed in their latest report that many Montagnards are severely mistreated after being returned to Vietnam (Vietnam: New Evidence of Torture, Mass Arrests of Montagnards: Cambodia Slams Door on New Asylum Seekers). Currently a repatriation agreement has been signed with the UNHCR that will only lead to more suffering of Montagnards.

On 25 January 2005 the Government of Cambodia, Vietnam and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding over 700 Montagnard asylum seekers who are currently in Cambodia under UNHCR protection. The Montagnard Foundation submits this MOU is flawed and dangerous because it does not contain any explicit guarantees that Montagnard refugees returned to Vietnam will be effectively protected by the UNHCR.

Further, the MOU does not meet the main request formulated in accordance with international law by more than 300 Montagnard refugees who wrote a public letter addressed to the UNHCR High Commissioner last November 2004. The UNHCR has not yet responded to this letter, which stated that the 300 Montagnard refugees would be more than willing to return to Vietnam only if the Vietnamese Government would allow UNHCR and other independent monitoring teams, including NGOs, to have free access to their villages and the Central Highlands.

The MOU states ?The Vietnamese side will be responsible for transporting the returnees from the venue of readmission to the localities of their residence before their departure to Cambodia?, and ?For the immediate groups, at the request of UNHCR and at an appropriate time, the Vietnamese Government and UNHCR will consult and cooperate on visits to the returnees. UNHCR is committed to endeavor to obtain the necessary funds internationally for infrastructure projects in the returnee localities. The assistance which might be necessary will be appraised by UNHCR during its working visits to such localities.?

These terms of the agreement clearly do not guarantee that UNHCR will be able to protect the refugees through the establishment of a monitoring presence in Vietnam nor during the repatriation process.

Furthermore the MOU states ?Those who neither want to resettle in a third country nor to return to Vietnam will have one month following determination of their status to decide either to go to a third country or to come back to Vietnam. If then they do not decide, the Royal Government of Cambodia and the UNHCR will work with the Vietnamese Government to bring them back to Vietnam in an orderly and safe fashion and in conformity with national and international laws.?

Given the widely documentation by human rights organizations that Montagnard refugees face  imprisonment, torture and mistreatment when repatriated in Vietnam, it is hereby submitted the repatriation of these refugees, without their agreement blatantly violates the Convention Against Torture (art. 3) and the 1951 Convention on Refugees.

(Compass) - On February 4, Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Van Khai released a policy document entitled ?Instructions Concerning the Protestant Religion.? The new instructions promise some changes for the better, such as allowing Protestant denominations active in Vietnam before 1975 to apply for legal registration. However, veteran observers believe the policy statement merely aims to quell the international outcry over ongoing persecution of Christians, particularly in the Central Highlands. Few expect real change to take place. Two police raids on the Mennonite Church in Ho Chi Minh City in the past two weeks, resulting in the arrest and questioning of 19 Christians, have reinforced their doubts. Some house church leaders dismiss the instructions as ?just window dressing to fool critics and diplomats.?

International Christian Concern is thankful for a government concerned with religious freedom around the world.  We hope that the State Dept will be firm in accepting nothing less than fundamental religious rights for those suffering in Eritrea, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia (many of which are Christian).

http://www.christiantoday.com/news/miss/284.htm

(Christian Today) - Three countries, which have been condemned over the past year for their poor religious freedoms records, have been touted as being on the verge of a deal, which would see the state of religious liberty in the Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, greatly advance. The US, yesterday did in fact surpass a deadline, at which it had previously stated it would impose sanctions on violators of the International Religious Freedom Act. However, yesterday the Bush administration requested that the US Congress extend this deadline for these three countries to demonstrate a commitment towards tolerance to all religions.

An American State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli reported, "We've been actively engaged with all three in working for improvements in respect for religious freedom in those countries. We've made some important progress. We are close to arrangements that respond to issues raised in the report, and we think that, with a little bit more time, we can take care of some of the issues that were problematic for us." Ereli also said, "We are at different stages, talking about different actions with each of the three, and I think our responses with each of the three are going to be different."

It was announced that the issues would be finalised within the next few weeks, although it was unclear when the new deadline would be.

http://www.christiantoday.com/news/miss/284.htm

(Compass) - Lawyers defending the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang informed his wife last week that his appeal before the People?s Supreme Court of Vietnam has been rescheduled for April 12. The new date allows the defense just 12 days to prepare its appeal on behalf of Quang and fellow Mennonite pastor Pham Ngoc Thach, imprisoned since last year on questionable charges of resisting police officers. Three of the original ?Mennonite Six? prisoners, now free, said they suffered torture and deprivation during their imprisonment to persuade them to testify against Quang. Meanwhile, Le Thi Hong Lien, the 21-year-old children?s Bible teacher convicted along with Quang and Thach, was transferred to the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital at the end of February. Lien?s father said he thinks prison officials ?violate the rights of women and their privacy, especially my daughter?s.?

(ANS) - Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation, has told the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, that the current Memorandum of Understanding regarding the fate of more than 700 Montagnard refugees is "flawed and dangerous." Kok Ksor, speaking on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party (TRP), said the Memorandum was flawed "because it does not contain any explicit guarantees that Montagnard refugees (or those not deemed refugees) who are returned to Vietnam will be effectively protected by the UNHCR." Ksor told the meeting: "In the year 2005 Montagnard refugees continue to be hunted down by Vietnamese police who pay bounties to Cambodian police for arresting them. Upon their return to Vietnam many refugees are subjected to harsh reprisals, torture and imprisonment." Ksor said that on 25 January, 2005 the Government of Cambodia, Vietnam and UNHCR signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding over 700 Montagnard asylum seekers currently in Cambodia. "Their fate remains in question and representatives of more than 300 refugees in Phnom Penh have asked the TRP to deliver this appeal to the UN," Ksor said. "Any attempt to return Montagnard refugees to Vietnam without guaranteeing their safety inside Vietnam will fail in the long term as returned refugees face reprisals," said Ksor.

(Compass) - Presiding Judge Nguyen Xuan Phat upheld the three-year sentence of the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and the two-year sentence of Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach at an appeal court hearing on April 12. On the morning of the trial, various police units dressed in riot gear were stationed at the courthouse compound. Around 200 Christians came to the courthouse to show solidarity with the Mennonite prisoners by holding a silent prayer vigil. On April 11, Mrs. Quang was summoned to the District 2 police station and scolded for writing and circulating an urgent appeal to Christians everywhere to fast and pray for justice to be done for her husband and the other Mennonite prisoners.

(Compass) - Vietnam has promised to release Mennonite church worker Le Thi Hong Lien, 20, two months short of completing her one-year prison term. Today Agence France-Presse quoted a European diplomat in Hanoi announcing that Ms. Lien would be among a group of 7,751 prisoners to be granted a special amnesty on April 30. An American diplomat confirmed the news to a representative of the Vietnam Mennonite Church. Two months ago, Lien, who taught children?s Bible classes prior to her arrest, was transferred to the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital to receive treatment for the effects of prison torture. According to visitors who saw her there, her body shows signs of severe abuse and she has difficulty using her jaw, which was broken by beatings.

(ICC) - The government of Vietnam is stepping up its persecution of minority Christians, according to detailed accounts received recently by Freedom House?s Center for Religious Freedom.  Sources in Vietnam have provided the Center with new accounts of persecution against Hmong Christians, including recent death threats which have prompted many to leave the country in recent months.  Hmong Christians have suffered from discrimination at the hands of the Vietnamese government for over two decades. The persecution is characterized by beatings, torture, arrests, brutality against women and children, and now death threats. The emergence of the new evidence coincides with the 30^th anniversary on Saturday, April 30, of the fall of Saigon to communist North Vietnamese forces. According to the reports, more than 100 Hmong Christians have fled the country over the last two months. The evidence consists of tape recorded interviews, handwritten testimony of Hmong leaders, and documentation identifying the names and positions of many of the Vietnamese officials implicated in the persecution.

(Compass) - After just two days of freedom, Vietnamese prisoner-of-conscience Ms. Le Thi Hong Lien was arrested for attending a Bible study with other Christian believers on May 1 at the home of imprisoned pastor Nguyen Hong Quang. A ?work team? of about 30 local officials came to the residence, which serves as a meeting place for the Vietnam Mennonite Church in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. When Mrs. Quang went out to talk to them, a number of police officers pushed their way past her into the house, loudly demanding that all religious activity cease. They ordered everyone to the ward police station for interrogation. A particularly abusive officer said he had orders to harass the Christians until they no longer went to the Quang house to worship. Lien remained silent throughout the interrogation, even though she was threatened with force. She was released at about 10:30 p.m. along with others of the group. She reportedly returned to the Quang home exhausted and terrified.

Vietnam:  Agreement Reached But Results Awaited

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

(USCIRF) notes that the agreement announced last week between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments appears to address a number of important religious freedom concerns, but the Commission emphasizes that dramatic actions still need to be taken by Vietnam before CPC designation should be altered.  The effect of signing this agreement is the avoidance of more stringent actions available under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), including economic sanctions, required for countries designated as "countries of particular concern," or CPCs.   Vietnam was designated a CPC by the State Department in September 2004.

"This was the first diplomatic agreement signed with a CPC country since the passage of IRFA.  The use of CPC designation as a diplomatic tool has allowed the two countries to talk seriously about religious freedom issues. However, we note that although some details of the agreement were discussed, the agreement itself is not public and the Commission has not seen it," said USCIRF Chair Preeta D. Bansal.  "Moreover, the agreement only signals promises of improvement and not actual measurable progress, and from what has been announced by the State Department, it appears to leave a number of important areas of religious freedom concern unaddressed.

 The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the status of  freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress.

(Compass) - On May 5, John Hanford, U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, announced an agreement with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam regarding issues of religious liberty and confirmed the release of 12 religious prisoners as part of a special amnesty. Six Hmong Christians and Mennonite church worker Le Thi Hong Lien were among them. The agreement acknowledges recent progress in Vietnam?s religious rights policies, including a pledge to allow hundreds of disbanded churches to reopen. Nevertheless, some observers expressed skepticism. ?This will not be an easy task,? one source said, ?because for many years the official dogma -- believed and taught from the top -- was that Protestantism is an American religion bent on overthrowing the communist revolution. As such, it was commendable policy to discriminate against, harass and persecute Christians.?

(ANS) - New evidence shows that Vietnamese security forces are continuing to mistreat and arbitrarily detain Montagnards, indigenous hill people from the Central Highlands. Human Rights Watch (HRW) today in a new 16-page briefing paper said Vietnamese officials are also continuing to force Montagnard Christians to recant their faith. Targeted in particular are those perceived as following "Dega Christianity," an unsanctioned form of evangelical Christianity followed by many Montagnards, who distrust government-controlled religious organizations and seek to manage their own affairs, HRW said in a report received by ASSIST News Service (ANS). Human Rights Watch said the Vietnamese government has banned Dega Christianity and charges that it is not a religion but a separatist political movement. "Montagnards who attempt to practice their religion independently still face assaults and live in fear," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The persecution of Montagnards for their religious beliefs and for their claims to ancestral lands continues unabated."  Human Rights Watch said that recent talks between Vietnam and the United States on Vietnam's designation by the U.S. as a "Country of Particular Concern" for religious persecution have produced some commitments by the Vietnamese government to allow greater religious freedom. Registration requirements for some churches have been loosened, and the Prime Minister has issued a regulation banning the forced renunciation of religious beliefs. However, the regulation requires religious organizations to obtain government permission in order to operate. It states that only churches that have conducted "pure religious activities" since 1975 can register for official authorization. This effectively eliminates Montagnard house churches in the Central Highlands, most of which started up in the late 1980s and early 1990s. HRW says that in an ominous tone, the regulation instructs officials to publicly expose "disguised Protestants" and to "fight attempts by hostile forces to abuse Protestantism to incite people to act subversively."

(ANS) - After a three-day monitoring trip last week to Viet Nam's central highlands to check on the well-being of Montagnards who had voluntarily returned from Cambodia, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that the returnees seem to be in good shape and back in the swing of normal life. According to a story by Jennifer Pagonis for the Reuters Foundation AlertNet, UNHCR's representative in Hanoi, Vu Anh Son, met with local authorities and 18 returnee families during his May 18 -21 visit to Gia Lai and Kom Tum provinces in the central highlands. A total of 35 Montagnards returned home in March after an agreement was signed by UNHCR, Viet Nam and Cambodia in late January this year.  Son said all of the returnees he met said they had stopped over in Pleiku, the provincial capital of Gia Lai, for a period of two to five days immediately after their return to Viet Nam. They said they were questioned by the local authorities about the reasons for their departure and were told about the government policies towards minorities and Montagnard returnees. They also underwent certain administrative formalities. "No one I met amongst the returnees claimed they were beaten or harassed during their stay in Pleiku or upon their return home," said Son, who visited the returnees in their homes. "They all seemed in good shape." Under the January accord, Viet Nam gave written guarantees that the returnees will not be punished, discriminated against or prosecuted. Many of the Montagnards are Christians.

(ANS) - Two months after Prime Minister Phan Van Khai banned religious persecution, local authorities in northern and central Vietnam are still exerting heavy-handed pressure on Protestants to renounce their faith, Protestants from both regions have told Radio Free Asia's Vietnamese service. In separate interviews, Protestants from Lao-Kai, Thai Binh, and Gia Lai provinces have described incidents in which local officials either harassed or assaulted church members or failed to intervene when others did so, according to a story monitored by ASSIST News Service (ANS). An article with original reporting by Viet-Hung for RFA's Vietnamese service, written and produced for the Web by Sarah Jackson-Han, says local authorities interviewed by RFA reporters denied that any beatings had occurred, and the Vietnamese central government rejects allegations that it sanctions harassment or persecution based on religious beliefs. The article says Prime Minister Khai?s order instructed officials to "ensure that each citizen's freedom of religious and belief practice is observed [and] outlaw attempts to force people to follow a religion or to deny their religion." It claims that the New York-based Human Rights Watch said while registration requirements are looser, only churches that have conducted "pure religious activities" since 1975 can register for official authorization -- eliminating Montagnard house churches in the Central Highlands, most of which started up in the late 1980s and early 90s.

(BosNewsLife) - Risking long prison sentences, Vietnamese house church leaders have given written testimony to the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. about what they say is widespread persecution of Christians in the Communist nation, BosNewsLife monitored Wednesday, June 22. The testimony came as Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van Khai began a historic visit to the United States Monday, June 20, which is aimed at boosting relations with Washington, 30 years after the Vietnam war ended. Church leaders Rev. Tran Mai, general director of the Inter-Evangelistic Movement of Vietnam, Evangelist Truong Tri Hien of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, and the Rev. Pham Dinh Nhan of the United Gospel Outreach church were reportedly among several religious leaders detailing attacks against Christians.     The last Vietnamese religious leader who submitted written testimony to a US government agency, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, was Father Nguyen Van Ly, noted Christian news agency Compass Direct. After his written testimony was read into the Commission record on February 13, 2001, Vietnamese officials sentenced him to 15 years in prison "for slandering Vietnam."

Rev. Mai submitted his testimony directly from Vietnam. He gave current stories of religious persecution from Hai Phong harbor to the Mekong Delta. He quoted Hmong, Kor and Hre ethic minority leaders recounting incidents of beatings, pepper spray, forced labor, confiscation of property -- including land and houses -- and imprisonment, all of which have occurred since the ?liberalization? of laws and regulations on religion, Compass Direct reported. He also named victims and perpetrators. Mai reportedly concluded that ?the Ordinance on Religion and the Instructions signed by the Prime Minister [is] ?old wine in new skins.? The new legislation still retains the essence of oppressing religion. The government has officially announced that ?The government will only recognize a few religious denominations. So what does this mean for those who will not be recognized?", he reportedly wondered.

(Forum 18) - Recent government religious regulations provide no basis for religious freedom, Vietnamese Christian lawyer Truong Tri Hien argues in his personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service. Hien was Acting General Secretary of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam and fled his homeland in June 2004, after a warrant was issued to arrest him for "resisting a person performing his duty." The Vietnamese Justice Code states that this includes "threatening to make public information that will be unfavourable to the person doing their duty, or unfavourable to those close to the person doing their duty". Hien had been documenting religious freedom violations. Hien pleads for foreigners to judge the Vietnamese government by its continuing attacks on its own citizens' religious freedom, and to take action to force it to abide by international human rights standards.

(ANS) - The European Commission "has been following with great concern" the case of the Montagnard Christians in the Vietnam Highlands and will continue to monitor the situation "very closely", according to a response to a Parliamentary question from two members of the European Parliament. The Commission also believes that recent allegations made by Human Rights Watch concerning abuses by the Vietnamese Government "are serious and deserve the full attention of the EU."
 

(Forum 18) - Despite three new legal documents on religion since last November, government harassment of religious communities has not eased. Prison sentences on Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang and a colleague were confirmed in April, two Hoa Hao Buddhists were given prison sentences and massive fines the same month for distributing the teachings of their movement's founder, while Hmong Protestants in the north-west were beaten by local officials and had their properties confiscated in May. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and numerous Protestant churches remain outlawed. A comparison of the situation five years ago and today shows no change in the fundamental causes of persecution: the restrictions on unregistered religious activity, the interference in the activity of registered religious communities and the lack of a transparent line of command from the central government to local officials which allows local violations to continue. If religious freedom is to improve, these three causes of persecution will be crucial benchmarks of change.

(Compass) - About 70 workers took sledge hammers and electric saws to tear down a legally disputed section of a Mennonite church building, as well as another 4.8- meter section of the sanctuary and apartment above it that had not been contested. They destroyed the apartment home belonging to the family of Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, who is in prison for three years for allegedly resisting an officer. The destruction culminates a year of harassment of the Mennonite church.

(Compass) - Just five days after authorities demolished half of a Mennonite church center, officials on Sunday evening forced their way in to disband a prayer meeting. As Christians were praying quietly, one of 30 local authorities shouted at them to stop and ordered Le Thi Phu Dzung (the wife of imprisoned pastor Nguyen Hong Quang) to disband the meeting. Dzung was cited for ?gathering a crowd and disturbing public order? and ?conducting illegal religious activities.? Officials returned to the Mennonite center just before 9 p.m. for a second raid on a tip that Dzung had convened another meeting. Finding no meeting, the security police instead threatened to confiscate motorcycles parked inside the building. A prominent house church leader remarked that the May 2005 U.S.-Vietnam agreement on improving religious liberty is on trial.

(ANS) - The fate of Montagnard Degar Christians being held in Vietnam's notorious Ba Sao Prison is being questioned by an organization dedicated to preserving their rights. Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation Inc., an organization representing the interests of the indigenous Montagnard Degar Christians, states, "The conditions inside Vietnam's prisons is medieval and so many of our people have been brutally tortured there." On 20 July 2005, numerous news agencies reported Cambodian authorities forcibly deported approximately 100 Degar Montagnard Christians back to Vietnam who had fled the crackdown in Vietnam. Various human rights groups denounced the move.

US State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli stated on 20 July 2005, "We have raised U.S. objections to this involuntary repatriation with both the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam. We are disappointed that these individuals were repatriated before an internationally-staffed monitoring program was in place in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and before other solutions could be considered for these individuals." MFI says that currently there are an estimated 200 Montagnards Christians in Vietnamese communist prisons who have received harsh prison sentences of up to thirteen years since 2001 for their Christian religious activities, participation in peaceful protests, or for attempting to flee to Cambodia.

(Montagnard Foundation) ? The Vietnamese government has forced Degar Christians to abandaon their belief and follow a new belief.  This new religion, "Than Tuy" was created by Vietnamese authorities after the Montagnard Degar demonstrations in February 2001. The government assigned three leaders to implement the creation of this new religion in Gai Lai province.  Kok Ksor, head of the Montagnard Foundation states, "This new religion created by the Vietnamese government is only a front to control and persecute the Montagnard Degar people. According to our people?s belief as Christians, we have never seen such a type of missionary come to our homelands and force our people to worship their God until now. We believe that human beings can seed the rice-fields but to make the rice grow, what is needed is God. It is the same thing with spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mankind can preach the gospel but only the Holy Spirit of God can make them believe. Therefore, any religion created by a government and that forces people to follow it - is not a true religion. Our people have suffered so much and they cry out to the international community to now protect them.?

AUTHORITIES OFFER PASTOR FREEDOM FOR CONFESSION

(Compass Direct) - The Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang was working at a labor camp machine used to extract cashew nuts on August 9 when he was approached by high prison officials. They told him he would be moved immediately to another prison.

With no further explanation or time to prepare to leave, Rev. Quang was bundled into a comfortable staff car and driven with guards to the K1-Z30A Prison in Xuan Loc, Dong Nai Province, about 250 kilometers (155.3 miles) south of the Dak Lak prison camp where he had been held. He was not allowed to retrieve even his Bible.

Rev. Quang soon discovered the reason for this sudden transfer. Shortly after his arrival at the fifth prison since his arrest on June 8, 2004, officials indicated to Rev. Quang that he could be set free in connection with Vietnam?s traditional amnesty on the September 2 National Day. All he need do, they said, is sign a paper agreeing that he was guilty of the charges on which he had been tried and convicted.

Rev. Quang, who has maintained his innocence from the outset, told officials at the Dong Nai province prison that he would not change his position and admit to guilt now.

Sentenced Three Years for "Interfering With Officers"

The pastor and five other Mennonite workers were arrested at various times between March and June 2004 in connection with an incident on March 2, 2004, when Rev. Quang confronted two plainclothes policemen who had harassed some of the workers and were staking out his home and church. The six Mennonites were convicted in a joint trial on November 12, 2004, and sentenced to various jail terms for ?interfering with officers doing their duty.?

Rev. Quang?s lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai, presented what many considered a brilliant defense in an appeal to the People?s Supreme Court in April 2005. But Rev. Quang was overruled and his three-year sentence upheld.

The Mennonite prisoners, including a young woman, Le Thi Hong Lien, were subjected to harsh treatment in an attempt to make them accuse and betray Rev. Quang. Earlier this year, authorities released Lien during the April 30 Liberation Day amnesty, two months before the end of her sentence. Reports of the torture that resulted in her mental breakdown led to a wide international advocacy campaign. Lien was transferred to a mental hospital to allow for at least partial rehabilitation before she received the amnesty.

She also was pressured to sign an admission of guilt; she also refused.

?We find it interesting that Vietnamese authorities are so intent on getting Pastor Quang to admit guilt -- they have already declared him guilty,? a Vietnamese church leader told Compass. ?We pray earnestly that he will be released anyway and be reunited with his wife and children and his church.?

An International Embarrassment

The international advocacy around the Mennonite prisoners has caused major embarrassment for the Vietnamese government at a time it is urgently trying to show the world a kinder face in its treatment of religious groups. According to house church leaders and ethnic minority Christians in Vietnam, recent legislative measures on religion have not resulted in noticeable improvements.

No church organization has yet achieved legal registration, and church leaders have documented many ongoing attempts to force Christians to give up their faith.

In early September, the U.S. Department of State will announce whether Vietnam will again be named a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), the worst category of human rights offenders. In May, the U.S. administration announced that it had signed an agreement with Vietnam -- a secret exchange of letters how Vietnam could escape the CPC designation. Vietnam urgently needs removal of the CPC designation in order to obtain trouble-free trade with the United States, as well as for U. S. support for accession to the World Trade Organization.

?Failure to show improvement in the area of religious freedom and other human rights, at the very time Vietnam has promulgated legislation and is trumpeting improvements, should be worrisome to the world community relating to Vietnam,? a Compass Vietnam source observed. ?Either the new legislation is a just a sham for public relations, as many religious leaders believe, or Vietnam?s central government lacks the authority to direct its local officials.?

Update on Rev. Quang?s Wife

Compass has also learned that Le Thi Phu Dzung, Rev. Quang?s wife and now president of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, has filed a petition to seek redress for the forcible demolition by local authorities of the Quang home and part of the Mennonite worship center on July 19.

The long document includes diagrams, official documents and photos demonstrating how authorities broke their own regulations in their aggressive campaign to stop the operation of the church. In the petition, Dzung informs authorities of her urgent need to repair the open back of the center as the demolition has threatened the structural integrity of the building and endangered her, her three children and the Mennonite Christians who worship there.

Background:

The indigenous Montagnards (Degar) peoples have suffered decades of persecution by the communist government of Vietnam, namely; confiscation of their ancestral lands, torture, killings, unjust imprisonment and religious repression. In fact in 2004 the US State Department declared Vietnam to be one of worst violators of religious freedom in the world. Hundreds of Montagnard Degar People are currently in Vietnam?s prisons and since 2001 thousands more have been subject to arrest and torture.

Montagnard Foundation President Kok Ksor states:

 ?Today in Vietnam over 200 Montagnard, Degar people, are unjustly rotting in Vietnamese prisons. Their alleged crimes are refusing to renounce Christianity, fleeing to Cambodia or participating in peaceful demonstrations. The condition in these prisons is brutal and almost all our people describe torture and harsh treatment. Recently we received information from inside Ba Sao prison that guards would chain our people to latrines to hide them when international inspectors visit the prison. Vietnam has also been declared one of the worst violators of religious freedom by the US State Department last year and the Communist government is releasing all sorts of propaganda in order to cheat its way into the World Trade Organization. In the recent White Paper (Chapter IV) they falsely called me a ?terrorist? and an organization ?promoting secession?. I fully reject these allegations and state we only seek human rights and land rights under an indigenous people framework, as we are members of the UN Working Group of Indigenous Populations.?

I put this question directly to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and Communist Party Chairman Nung Duc Manh: ?If you really want to convince the international community that Vietnam is complying with human rights then why don?t you stop treating our people, the Degar Montagnards like your worst enemy? If you stop killing, torturing us, and preventing us from being Christian then we wouldn?t protest against the government.?

Evangelical Christians Increasingly Persecuted Across South East Asia, rights group say

BosNewsLife - Evangelical Christians and missionaries are reportedly persecuted across South East Asia, often with support from local authorities, with new allegations of political pressure on believers in Vietnam, BosNewsLife established Wednesday, August 24.

"Local authorities keep saying that evangelical Christianity is very evil," Christian Aid Mission (CAM), quoted one of its workers as saying in Vietnam's Central Highlands. "They try to dissuade people from believing. A number of people get scared and turn away," said CAM.

Believers report that as part of the alleged anti-Christian policy, Vietnamese university students are being sent to rural villages in Vietnam as Communist 'missionaries' "to preach Ho Chi Minh's Communist philosophies." They publicly criticize all religious belief and pressure local Christians to abandon their faith, missionaries said. It was expected to raise doubts among human rights groups about Vietnam?s openly declared intention to allow grant more freedoms to evangelical groups and unregistered house churches in the country.

WATCHED AND THREATENED

Vietnamese officials could not be reached for comment. US-backed CAM said in a statement to BosNewsLife in Bangkok that it also received "multiple reports of native missionaries being watched, threatened or interrupted in evangelistic activities by local government officials."

In comments released by CAM one unidentified missionary claimed he was threatened by a Communist secretary who allegedly told him: "You must not proclaim evangelical Christianity to other people, otherwise you shall be arrested."

"In another instance, a government distribution of monthly support to poor families who lost relatives in the Vietnam War was refused to Christians in one area.  "If those people desire to get their support back," one government official is reported to have said, "?they must renounce their religion," CAM added.

LAOS VILLAGERS ATTACKED

While these reports could not be independently confirmed, BosNewsLife has established a similar policy in neighboring Laos. Christians in several villages told BosNewsLife some had lost their state jobs for refusing to renounce their faith in Christ.

"The Communist authorities see Christianity as a threat to their powerbase and ideology," said Jim Jacobson, president of advocacy group Christian Freedom International (CFI), which supports persecuted Christians in South East Asia.

Analysts have also linked the attacks against Christians to misgivings over the United States-led war on terrorism in the region and Washington's push for more freedom, the kind of criticism that put Communists in an uneasy alliance with Muslim militants. 

CHRISTIANITY "FOREIGN RELIGION"

Christianity is often seen as a foreign, Western backed religion, CAM and other organizations say. CAM said it was especially concerned about a "Muslim backlash against Christians," following two confirmed attacks on native missionaries. In Pakistan Christians "are seen by many Pakistanis as tied to often-reviled America," CAM claimed.

"Native ministry leaders report that, several weeks ago, a missionary was visited by three Muslim men late at night. As soon as the missionary opened the door to admit them, the men held him up at gunpoint and locked him, with his family, in a back room. The men then searched his house for two hours, stealing Bibles and Christian literature as well as blankets intended for orphaned children," CAM said in a statement to BosNewsLife.

"The attackers destroyed what they could not steal, including a computer and motorbike. Their parting words were a death threat to the missionary," CAM said.

In another incident, CAM claimed that "a few days later, a team of five young Gospel workers witnessing in a North Pakistan village were surrounded by 300 Muslim extremists who began beating them. The men were dragged to a local police station, where policemen refused to let gathering reporters photograph the victims. Thankfully, all missionaries have since been released."

NUMBER OF REFUGEES

CAM said it had learned from "ministry leaders" in Pakistan the attacks have led to an increase in refugees seeking shelter at mission centers or asylum in other countries. There are also fears of attacks against churches in Thailand, where intelligence officials have been quoted as saying they already expected a major attack this month.

Over 100 people already died since last year in several bomb attacks carried out by Muslim militants and subsequent fighting. This is expected to increase pressure on the up to 160,000 Christian Karen refugees seeking shelter in Thailand, BosNewsLife noticed.

"It has become clear that we as a Body of Christ should at least remember the suffering Christians" in this region, said CFI President Jacobson. Elderly woman in Nam Tee village of Laos sees foreign Christians for first time in her life.

BosNewsLife - The Vietnam Mennonite Church urged the Communist government Thursday, September 1, to release its jailed evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach, the last of six Mennonite church leaders still being held since a wave of arrests in March 2004.  The appeal came a day after news emerged about the release of 45-year old Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, a well-known promoter of religious freedom and human rights who has defended farmers' land rights cases and spoken out against the arrests of religious and political dissidents.  Pastor Quang was sentenced November 2004 to three years imprisonment and forced labor on what human rights groups described as "false charges" of "interfering with officers doing their duty."  He always denied the charges against him, despite severe pressure to sign an admission of guilt, church sources said. Vietnamese authorities have not reacted to the allegations. 

"We believe that the early release of pastor Quang is the result of the great concern expressed by many governments, human rights agencies, international press coverage and evangelical believers both within and beyond Mennonite circles," the Vietnam Mennonite Church said in a statement received by BosNewsLife.  He was held in five different prisons, and reportedly suffered abuse at the hands of fellow prisoners. "During this time his health was seriously affected; many times he fainted and his strength gave out while performing labor in the prisons...For long periods near the end he was kept among prisoners with HIV/AIDS, so the possibility of infection is quite high, and many times he was beaten by criminals in the prisons," the church added.  In addition, it said, "his Bible was confiscated, and he was forbidden to pray for other prisoners in his area; and there were times when he was disciplined for preaching to the prisoners." 

While it is pleased with his release, the church stressed the government should urgently free evangelist Thach, who was sentenced in November 2004 to two years in imprisonment. "He has suffered severe beatings at the hands of the authorities," said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a human rights watchdog.

The Washington, DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern has received reports that the Vietnamese government recently burned more than ten homes of tribal Christians in Suoi Rut hamlet, Doi Sau village, Quang Ngai province. The affected families were forced to flee their village on July 21, 2005, and are now searching for a new area to reside in.  

The homes of ten Hre tribal Christians were destroyed because they refused to deny their faith. The victims belonged to the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN), which has formal recognition by Vietnamese government. The local Communist authorities of Son Thuong village, Quang Ngai province have publicly stated that ?the Christian religion is America?s religion, and is not allowed here.? 

The following is a statement from a pastor of the Hre tribe:

"On Sunday, August 21, 2005 at 8:00 A.M., Mr. Dinh van Hoanh, police chief of Son Thuong village and his assistant, Mr. Thai Mai Quan, came to Mr. Dinh van Hoang?s house and said:  'We do not allow any Christians to live here.   If you want to stay you must sign this paper to declare that you and your family are renouncing your faith'. 

Mr. Hoang refused to do so.  The police chief then called numerous officials, including Mr. Dinh van Xoa, hamlet chief, and Mr. Dinh van Hoach, his assistant, to come and destroy Hoang?s house.

They then told Mr. Hoang that if he recanted his faith, they would rebuild his house. Mr. Hoang again refused, and the authorities then destroyed his animal pens.?

Vietnam was named a Country of Particular Concern (CPC - meaning they are one of the world's worst violators of human rights) by the US State Department last year. Once a country is named a CPC, the State Department is then supposed to issue penalties or benchmarks of improvement within six months.

The State Department failed to issue benchmarks or penalties against the Vietnamese government this past spring due to political pressures and assurances from the Vietnamese government that this type of behavior would cease. Unfortunately, the persecution of tribal Christians has brazenly continued with no discernable change in tenor or volume. 

ICC strongly recommends that concerned individuals contact their congressional representatives. To find your elected representatives, you can go to the following web sites:

Compass - Committed to a Vietnamese mental hospital for nearly a year after being diagnosed as ?delusional? for believing in God, the Rev. Than Van Truong was released to his family on Saturday, September 17. Prosecuting authorities had committed Rev. Truong to a high security section of the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital in Dong Nai Province on September 30, 2004.

His wife, Nguyen Thi Kim, received a call from him on Friday, September 16, but by the time she arrived officials said the hospital had closed for the day. She returned the next morning, and after various procedural requirements Rev. Truong arrived home in Ho Chi Minh City at 4:50 p.m.

A former officer in the Vietnamese People?s Army, Truong became a Christian and eventually a worker for the Baptist General Conference house church organization in Vietnam. His troubles began several years ago, when he sent Bibles to Vietnam?s top officials with the encouragement to consult them for truth and wisdom. He was arrested in May 2003 and imprisoned without charges for nine months.

After that he was kept under close surveillance until his second arrest in June 2004. This time, again unable to find any criminal charges, prosecutors committed him to the mental hospital. At first heavily injected with unknown drugs, he became ill and very lethargic. Later, when he was given oral medications, he managed to keep from ingesting them and soon improved.

Only a few people knew of his situation until visitors to Mennonite prisoner Le Thi Hong Lien discovered him after Pastor Truong had given her a Bible. Lien, who suffered a mental breakdown after severe abuse in prison, had been transferred to the Bien Hoa hospital in late February 2005 following intensive international advocacy. She remained there until being granted amnesty in April. (See Compass Direct, ?Vietnam Will Free Le Thi Hong Lien,? April 29.)

Following Rev. Truong?s discovery by some of Lien?s visitors, regular updates about his situation, including details about his treatment, made it possible to launch a wide advocacy campaign by Western governments and human rights advocacy groups.

This campaign frustrated and angered Vietnamese authorities. The Dong Nai Province prosecuting authorities and Bien Hoa hospital officials began to blame each other, and neither would take responsibility. For months Rev. Truong was stuck in the middle -- prosecutors could find no criminal charges to lay against him, and a doctor at the hospital told his wife that he showed no signs of any mental disorder.

But a hospital committee assigned the task of re-evaluating Pastor Truong adhered to Soviet-era, orthodox Marxism when it continued to find him ?delusional? because he insisted on his belief in God.

Rev. Truong wrote exceptionally lucid reports about his own mistreatment and deplorable conditions in the mental hospital. Comparable with some of Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn?s accounts of life in the Soviet Gulag, Rev. Truong?s reports hold the Vietnamese system up to ridicule and engender a deep sympathy for those who endure its excesses.

In recent weeks no drugs had been administered to him, and his health further improved. He resumed his evangelistic activity and even baptized some fellow patients. Some of them also were mentally sound but had committed violent crimes. They used personal connections to get placed into the mental hospital rather than be executed or imprisoned.

His hospital discharge paper, obtained by Compass, maintains the diagnosis that Rev. Truong was suffering ?confusion and delusion,? and his pharmaceutical order prescribes that he ?regularly take medication? -- which he has no intention of doing. Rev. Truong is consulting with a Christian attorney in Vietnam to determine whether he should sue authorities for damages. Such a lawsuit would have little chance in Vietnam?s legal system, still directed by the Communist Party, though some sympathizers hope such a case could make a point.

The release of Rev. Truong brings to eight the number of evangelical prisoners or mental hospital inmates who have been released this year. Others remain incarcerated. Vietnam steadfastly maintains it has never imprisoned anyone for religious reasons.

HUMAN RIGHTS AGENCY DENOUNCES PERSECUTION IN ASIA
Assist News Service
Wolfgang Polzer

A human rights organization has denounced the persecution of Christian missionaries in Asia. According to the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) in Frankfurt, Germany, they run a high risk of discrimination if they exercise their right to proclaim their religion.

The organization emphasizes that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations in 1948 protects missionary activity. Among the signatories are some of the states with a high degree of persecution such as India, Vietnam and the People?s Republic of China.

Vietnam has a ?long tradition of persecution? according to ISHR. The clergy of the officially recognized Protestant associations in South and North Vietnam as well as non-registered house churches are subject to discrimination by the Communist regime.

This year houses of missionaries in several regions have been burnt to the ground, according to ISHR. Missionaries working among ethnic minorities in the mountainous regions of North and Central Vietnam have been imprisoned, tortured and assaulted if they refused to abandon their faith.

Some rice fields belonging to Christians were confiscated and handed over to party officials. Some districts had been declared ?free of Christians?. ISHR is concerned that the central government in Hanoi is not able to contain local authorities.

Anti-conversion laws in some Indian states increase the persecution of Christians, according to the human rights organization. It quotes several examples. Sunny John, director of a children?s home in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was arrested October 7 for alleged missionary activity among Hindu children.

Hindu extremists beat the Catholic Ignatius Bara to death in Jharkand. In June four Christians were taken into custody in Chattisgarh for alleged missionary activities, and in February evangelist Kiran Kumar was arrested in Orissa.

In Bangladesh militant Muslims murdered the Christians Kumar Roy (30) and Liplal Marandi (35) July 29. They had been showing Christian videos.

In Indonesia Rebecca Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratnu Pangun are serving three-year prison sentences. They ran a Sunday school with some Muslim children. It was alleged that the three Christian women had exercised undue religious influence, states the ISHR.

Center for Religious Freedom

NEWLY LEAKED DOCUMENT SHOWS LOCAL VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST PARTY ADOPTS GOVERNMENT STRATEGY TO "FIGHT RELIGION" AND "ERADICATE" PLACES OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 28, 2005 - Vietnam officials in tribal areas vow to "fight religion" in leaked document, said Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom today.

A secret document issued earlier this year by a local Vietnamese communist party branch, and obtained by the Center, reveals an official policy of forcing Hmong Christians to give up their faith and of "eradicating" Christian meeting places.

The document, from the Muong Nhe District Party Office (Task force 184, No. 30-KH/184, in Dien Bien Province) dated February 25, 2005, describes a comprehensive campaign by Party and government officials, in partnership with the police and military, that was scheduled to have been waged from March 2 through June 30, 2005. Because of the remoteness of the rural district, it has not yet been confirmed whether the campaign was implemented.   

The document calls for "mobilizing the masses to fight and resist religion and religious belief, and eradicate places complicating public security." These "places" are an obvious reference to Christian house churches. Cadres will "get the people to give up their religion and return to their traditional beliefs and customs... and inspect the areas not yet infiltrated with the Vang Chu [the Hmong term for God] religion so it does not "infect other places."

Village leaders would be required to "to develop regulations and pledge forms" to be signed by those pressured to give up their faith. As the Center has reported previously, dozens of Hmong Christians have been summoned to "re-education" where they have been told to give up their faith and have been harassed, beaten, forced to drink wine until intoxicated, and to sign pledges renouncing their faith.[i]

"This document indicates that the situation in Vietnam can be summed up as repression as usual," said Center Director Nina Shea.

This local campaign appears to be intended to carry out Plan 184, first revealed in Freedom House's November 2000 publication Directions for Stopping Religion. It began three months after Vietnam's "Ordinance on Religion" effective November 15, 2005, and three weeks after the Prime Minister issued the "Special Instructions Regarding Protestantism" decree on February 4, 2005, both of which were touted by Hanoi as liberalization of state control over religion.  

The document gives no consideration to the fact that Hmong Christians are identified with the legally-recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), and that the church had issued certificates of acceptances to 981, mostly Hmong, ethnic minority congregations as of September 30, 2005. It indicates that despite Vietnam's public propaganda claiming that it has changed its policy; it continues its religious repression.

In May, John Hanford, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, announced an agreement that Vietnam would release twelve prisoners of conscience, fully implement Vietnam's November 15 legislation on religious freedom and its February 4 "Special Instruction Concerning Protestantism," and ensure that local authorities "strictly and completely adhere to the new legislation," especially with respect to the practice of forcing prisoners to recant their faith.

However, Vietnam's repression of Protestantism has continued since the agreement. Leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) continue to be harassed and detained, and there is no legal framework for the UBCV, the Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, and others to register with the government and operate independently with leaders of their own choosing. There are an estimated 100 religious prisoners in jail or under some form of house arrest for religious activity and hundreds of churches, home worship centers, and meeting places remain closed.

"While the State Department placed Vietnam on its 2004 list of ' <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/c13281.htm> Countries of Particular Concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act, it has not recommended any sanctions against it," said Ms. Shea. "Instead, it has tried positive inducements for Vietnam to change its repressive ways. It is now time to implement the Act's sanction provisions."

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BosNewsLife - Four people who regularly visited an Internet chat room and website dedicated to religious freedom in Vietnam have been detained by Vietnamese security forces, an activist told BosNewsLife Saturday, October 29.  

"We have just been informed that some of our room visitors, including one American, were arrested in Vietnam by the Security Police Office..." on charges of "attempting to conduct a coup d'etat," said Calfornia based Anthony Nguyen of The International Movement for Vietnam's Democracy and Human Rights, which hosts the site.

His movement said it learned that 50 security forces on October 19, raided the Ho Chi Min City home of "Mr. Truong Quoc Huy, with an arrest order to detain" him. "However, for some unknown reason, they also arrested his two brothers Truong Quoc Tuan and Truong Quoc Nghia and Mr. Truong Quoc Tuan's girl friend, Lisa Pham Ngoc Anh Dao, an American citizen," who visited Vietnam, Nguyen added in an e-mail message to BosNewsLife.

Neither Vietnamese officials nor the United States Consulate were available for comment. 

He said the four had regularly visited a chatroom his group hosts via Paltalk.com, which allows people to participate in discussions on a variety of subjects.

"Our visitors are from Vietnam and different countries who can voice their opinions either anti or pro Communism. Sometimes they just describe the hardships they have been through [or] the better lives they made for themselves in democratic countries," Nguyen explained. 

The four apparently also visited the group's separate website, tudongonluanvn.com. It was not clear in which prison the group was held. He stressed the "felony of attempting to conduct a coup d'etat," for which they were apparently arrested "was just a false accuse the Vietnamese Communist authorities always use in their scheme to suffocate the people's right to freedom of speech."

About 600 people have so far signed an Internet petition urging the US Consulate General to intervene, Nguyen claimed.

"In his visit to the United States in June 2005, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai pledged with President [George W.] Bush that his regime will respect the people's right to freedom of speech and religion," the petition said.

"We sincerely ask you to intervene and demand the release of our American citizen, Ms Lisa Dao, as well as Truong Quoc Huy and his brothers Truong Quoc Tuan and Truong Quoc Nghia, in the spirit of the pledge made by Prime Minister Khai."

The case was expected to lead to new concern among human rights groups about increased surveillance of the Internet by Communist officials. Several dissidents and journalists, including Christians, are known to have been imprisoned in several countries of Asia, including China and Vietnam, for their comments on Internet.