Christian
Persecution Relentless According to Vietnam Protestants
May 27, 2005, 14:31 (UK)
Christian Today
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.
Jennifer Gold
jennifer@christiantoday.com