Vietnam jails
eight Hmong for ‘disturbing security’
Daily Times
Thursday, March 15, 2012
HANOI: Vietnam has jailed
eight Hmong people for taking part in a major gathering last year which the
court described as a separatist ethnic movement, state media reported Wednesday.
In May 2011, thousands of Hmong, a mostly Christian ethnic group, gathered in
Vietnam’s remote northwest apparently awaiting the arrival of a “messiah”.
The gathering was subsequently dispersed by authorities, in circumstances which
remain unclear.
The eight defendants, who appeared in court Tuesday in the northwestern province
of Dien Bien, were charged with “disturbing security”, the communist party
newspaper Nhan Dan reported.
Two of them received two-and-a-half year jail terms while the other six were
given two-year sentences. They will all also have to spend two years under house
arrest following their release, the report said. “This is a serious sentence,
but it also expresses the humanitarian (side of) Vietnamese law,” as the jail
terms could have been much longer, the Tin Tuc newspaper reported.
Officials had said the Hmong were lured by unidentified “individuals with ill
intentions” who spread rumours that a “king” would arrive and lead them to a
promised land.
According to Britain-based religious freedom group Christian Solidarity
Worldwide (CSW), the Hmong have “a mythical belief in their culture that a
‘messiah’ figure will appear and found a Hmong kingdom”.
CSW said the prophecy of US radio preacher Harold Camping, who claimed the world
would end on May 21 last year, was key to the protest’s timing.
There were unconfirmed reports at the time that dozens of Hmong were killed or
wounded by troops when the protest was broken up but Vietnamese officials have
not said whether there was any military involvement.
A local government leader later claimed in an interview with an army newspaper
that the protestors had been armed. “The Vietnam authorities have continuously
prevented independent monitors from assessing what actually happened” and had
“presented a one-sided view of events”, said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy
director for Human Rights Watch. “The recent announcement of prison sentences
for protest organisers for allegedly disturbing social order raises many
questions, such as what did the persons actually do to be prosecuted and receive
these sentences.”
The incident was the country’s worst case of ethnic tension since about 2,000
Montagnards fled to Cambodia over 2001 and 2004 after troops crushed protests in
the central highlands. Some of the Hmong helped US forces against North Vietnam
during the secret wartime campaign in neighbouring Laos, and faced retribution
after the communist takeover. afp