Christian Persecution Relentless According to Vietnam Protestants

Protestants in northern and central Vietnam continue to be pressured to renounce their faith by local authorities, despite the ban of religious persecution by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai two months ago. According to a story by ASSIST News Service (ANS), incidents have been described by Protestants from Lao-Kai, Thai Binh, and Gia Lai provinces that church members have been harassed or assaulted by local authorities.

In an article reported by Radio Free Asia's Vietnamese service, local officials were interviewed by RFA reporters but they denied any assaults. Allegations that the Vietnamese central government authorises religious persecution or harassment have been rejected.

The 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," reports the article.

The report asserts that the New York-based Human Rights Watch said only churches that have carried out "pure religious activities" since 1975 can register for official authorisation, while registration requirements have loosened up. It eradicates Montagnard house churches which have started in the late 1980s and early 90s in the Central Highlands.

The article says: "One group of Protestants in the northern province of Lao-Kai, bordering China, were beaten and had their rice fields confiscated in April after they refused to break with their church, according to Protestants who say they were among those targeted."

"They told me, 'The prime minister’s decree applies only to the area around Hanoi, not remote areas. Tell the prime minister to come here with the decree, and we will solve the problem,' " said Giang-A Tinh, 27, a minority Hmong from Ta-phin village in the Lao-Kai’s Sapa district.

Tinh travelled to Hanoi to complain to the central government and spoke to RFA's Vietnamese service from Hanoi. Local authorities "took all the rice fields of 12 families," he said.

Police and local officials had beaten Tinh on 23 April and 29 April, after he refused to give up his faith in writing. His mother and brother were also beaten, and his brother has been left bedridden.

"There are 45 protestant families in Ta-phin village. There are more in other villages but I don't know what happened to them," he told RFA. Another source confirmed that local authorities, led by village police chief Thao A Cau, confiscated land belonging to 12 Protestant families, said the article.

Tr’and-A-Cam, a Hmong Protestant of the same village, told RFA that he and three other villagers were beaten up after refusing to renounce their faith.

Tinh and Tr’and-A-Cam had fled to Hanoi to avoid more beatings and possible arrest, and to appeal for the central government to intercede.

"The authorities in the village and district let a group of 'brothers' [cadres and villagers] plunder all our land — they beat us all up in the Ta-phin People’s Committee office and in the rice fields. Numerous petitions to the province haven’t helped, so I brought our petition here to Hanoi to see if they can help," Cam said.

"They produced papers saying I was renouncing my religion and told me to sign them. When I didn't sign they beat me and others."

Cam said a police officer told him: 'Your God is the God of the French and the Americans...It's not the religion of Uncle Ho [Chi Minh]. If you don't put up an altar to the ancestors, you don't have the rice fields of the ancestors.’ "They told me to sign and renounce my religion, but I did not sign and did not quit my religion," he said

Tr’ang A Xa, chairman of the village People’s Council, denied the beatings. "They don't have altars in their homes for Thien [an ethnic Vietnamese deity], and that is wrong," Tr'ang A Xa said in an interview.

"You want to follow a religion, you have to register and get the permission of the local authorities, get agreement from relatives -- and if they don’t agree, you can't do it."

In the northern province of Thai Binh, village officials looked on as a protestant preacher and his assistant were being assaulted by ten people on 14 May.

The preacher, Nguyen Van Cam, said in an interview that the police officers stopped the two as they spoke with a female follower and invited them into the Dong Lam village administrative offices in Tien Hai district, about 100 kms (60 miles) southeast of Hanoi.

"They invited us to the office where they beat brother Dien, a believer who was with me. They had us report about our relation with a woman named Ms. Liet and sign a paper promising not to go to her anymore. We refused, and they said, 'You’ll see what we can do to you with our hands,' " he said.

May 14, he said that a group of 10 people they didn’t recognise surrounded them and began to beat them with sticks at about 8pm, about 100 meters from the village administrative office.

Though they called for help before falling unconscious, the several local officials looked on "watching without doing anything," said Cam.

"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.