Christians Urged to Write Jailed Vietnamese Christians

 

2/18/2005

By Allie Martin

A ministry that serves the persecuted Church has started a letter-writing campaign to encourage believers jailed for their faith in Vietnam.

Six Vietnamese Mennonite workers have received sentences ranging from nine months to three years because of their Christian beliefs. According to the ministry Open Doors USA, the sentences were handed down last November. Now the organization's president, Carl Moeller, is calling on Christians worldwide to join an advocacy campaign on the Vietnamese believers' behalf.

Moeller is asking fellow Christians to write letters of support to the jailed Mennonites. "This is a completely trumped-up charge," he says, "and during their imprisonment, they've been receiving beatings and the most heinous kinds of torturous treatment. So it's really quite serious."

Open Doors' sources report that the six Christians detainees were tortured because they refused to sign prepared documents making false accusations against their pastor. Meanwhile, Moeller says conditions continue to worsen for followers of Christ throughout Vietnam.

"The government there this past year has passed a repressive new law against the underground church and the practice of unregistered Christianity," the Open Doors spokesman says. "And we all know that registered Christianity is the government-controlled variety."

Increasingly, Moeller says Open Doors is hearing stories of repression and persecution in Vietnam, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for Church members there to worship freely or speak out about their faith. The ministry president is encouraging believers worldwide to pray for and write letters of encouragement to Vietnamese Christian prisoners of conscience.