"I submitted a complaint to Tien Hai district police, and I worked with them for two hours...They asked me to change the issue from religious persecution to personal conflict, but I refused," he said. But Bui Quy Hanh, chairman of Tien Hai district’s Fatherland Front, denied the incident.
"I work with local police every day, and I have meetings with them every week, and I haven't heard about any such incidents," Hanh said. "I've never heard about any Protestant activities in Tien Hai at all -- I know only about Buddhists and Catholics here."
"If Protestants come to see us, we always help them, even give them protection under the law," he said. "I didn't see any problems, no negative reactions. Everyone was excited," he said, confirming that he has just distributed the National Law on Belief and Religion to the regional officials.
According to the RFA article, some ethnic minority Protestants allegedly were made to sign a formal renunciation document or undergo a symbolic ritual of drinking rice whiskey mixed with animal blood, to avoid the threat of their property from being confiscated and physical abuse.
A Mennonite pastor and a preacher who were arrested and forced to denounce their faith in 2004 were called by police on 19 May this year in Gia Lai Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, and told to renounce their religion again, they said.
Pastor Y Kor and preacher Y Yan received a note of invitation to come to the village office at 8am 20 May for a working session with police by Chu A village police chief Nguyen Tien Mai which was sent through the People’s Committee of Plei Mo Nu hamlet.
Y Yan was kept at the police station for four hours, during which the ranking officer told him the Mennonite church was "reactionary" and illegal, it reported.
"I told them I live and die with the Mennonites, and nobody can tell me to abandon it," Y Yan said. The said that the police treated him kindly and urged him to remain calm and list all Mennonites in the village. But Y Yan refused.
In the RFA’s annual review of human rights around the world which was released in London on 25 May, Amnesty International reported that Hanoi had imprisoned protestors and forced religious followers to give up their faith in the past year.
In RFA’s most recent annual report on human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department said that while the constitution and government decrees of Vietnam offer freedom of religion, Hanoi last year "continued to restrict significantly organised activities of religious groups that it declared to be at variance with state laws and policies."
"According to credible reports, the police arbitrarily detained persons based upon their religious beliefs and practice, particularly among ethnic minority groups in the Central and Northwest Highlands. In 2003 and 2002, there were also reports that two Protestants in those areas were beaten and killed for reasons connected to their faith," it said.
"Under threat of physical abuse or confiscation of property, some ethnic minority Protestants allegedly were made to sign a formal, written denunciation or to undergo a symbolic ritual, which reportedly included drinking rice whiskey mixed with animal blood. Others refused, often with no known negative repercussions," the report said.
