Local Vietnam
Officials Secretly Adopt Government Strategy to 'Fight Religion'
Christianpost.com
Thursday, Nov.
3, 2005
Christian
faith is now under threat as officials in tribal areas of Vietnam have allegedly
adopted strategies to “fight religion,” according to a document found by a
U.S.-based human rights group.
Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom released a statement on Oct. 28
indicating that local Vietnamese communist party officials have been secretly
implementing policies to force Hmong Christians to deny their faith and
“eradicating” Christian meeting places according to a secret document issued
earlier this year from the Muong Nhe District Party Office, in Dien Bien
Province.
The document, dated Feb. 25, 2005, describes a comprehensive campaign by the
government, police and military officials to fight religions by closing down
places of worship and forcing people to renounce their faith. The campaign was
scheduled to be implemented from March 2 through June 30, 2005. U.S. religious
freedom officials have not been able to gather information concerning if the
strategy was executed due to the remoteness of the rural districts the plan was
to apply.
The document urged "mobilizing the masses to fight and resist religion and
religious belief, and eradicate places complicating public security."
In addition, the document called for troops to "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,’” reported Freedom House Center for Religious
Freedom.
The Center, in previous reports, has noted that dozens of Hmong Christians are
forced into “re-education” programs where they are commanded to give up their
faith and they are “harassed, beaten, forced to drink wine until intoxicated,
and to sign pledges renouncing their faith.”
"This document indicates that the situation in Vietnam can be summed up as
repression as usual," said Center Director Nina Shea.
The Vietnamese government gives no consideration to the fact that Hmong
Christians are considered a part of the legally-recognized Evangelical Church of
Vietnam (North) and the church had bestowed certificates of acceptances to 981,
mostly Hmong, ethnic minority congregations as of Sept. 30, 2005, the Center for
Religious Freedom notes in its report.
The document indicates that despite Vietnam’s claim that it has allow religious
freedom, it continues to repress religion, the Center added.
"While the State Department placed Vietnam on its 2004 list of 'Countries of
Particular Concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act, it has not
recommended any sanctions against it," said Shea in the statement. "Instead, it
has tried positive inducements for Vietnam to change its repressive ways. It is
now time to implement the Act's sanction provisions."
The Center for Religious Freedom is a department of Freedom House – the oldest
human rights group in America, which formed in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and
Wendell Willkie to oppose Nazism and Communism in Europe. The organization
presents the case of persecuted groups to the media, Congress, State Department,
and White House, urging these groups to respond and defend the persecuted
groups. Among the groups the Center is advocating in Washington are China,
Sudan, Vietnam, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Michelle Vu
michelle@christianpost.com