Vietnamese Christian, Family Forced into Hiding
Officials expel them from village; elsewhere, pastor dragged behind motorbike.
HO CHI MINH CITY (Compass Direct News) – Suffering severe abuse from villagers and local Vietnamese officials, Hmong Christian Sung Cua Po fled into the forest with his family on March 19.
An expulsion order had been issued to his family, an area Christian leader said.
Since Compass reported on Jan. 18 that Po, who embraced Christianity in November, received some 70 blows to his head and back after local officials in northwest Vietnam's Dien Bien Province arrested him on Dec. 1, 2009, he suffered physical attacks by police of Nam Son Commune on Feb. 10 and the confiscation of his motorbike.
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The Christian leader said that police have threatened that if he did not recant they would beat him till only his tongue was intact.
Around the Lunar New Year in mid-February, Po had an altercation with his father over offerings to family ancestors. Hmong Christians see no continuity between the old worship of ancestral spirits and their new faith in Jesus; for them it a spiritual power encounter with no possibility of compromise, and Po held fast to his allegiance to Christ, refusing to sacrifice to his ancestors.
On Feb. 20, Nam Son district police were authorized by Dien Bien Dong district authorities to demolish Po's house if deemed necessary. On Feb. 21, community members backed by police confiscated 40 sacks of paddy rice, the family's one-year supply. The villagers also took all cooking and eating utensils from the family.
Pressure against Po, a member of the Sung clan that has long been resistant to Christianity, comes both from traditionalists in his ethnic community and the government, though the government officials have tried to hide their involvement. Primarily hostile toward the Po family have been Officer Hang Giang Chen of the Dien Bien district police and Officer Sung Boua Long of the Nam Son Commune police.
A source close to Po reported that local authorities and villagers tore down the family's house on March 14. On March 19 the dispossessed Po couple fled into forest with their three children. Their relatives and community members say they do not know where they are. If previous experience holds true, they were likely given refuge by some of the many Christians in the region.
The same source reported that a foreign delegation visited the village on March 25 asking about Sung Cua Po. No Christians were allowed to meet the delegation. The source added that police had been there earlier to coach all villagers to say there was no government involvement in the mistreatment of the Po family and had issued dire threats for non-compliance.
Such antagonism has continued even though several western governments have raised the issue of the persecution of the Po family with high central government officials.
"The only conclusion one can draw," said one knowledgeable Vietnam source, "is that the central government is either unwilling or unable to intervene and enforce the published national standards for religious tolerance."
A Christian leader in the area told Compass yesterday that earlier this week authorities had burned 14 houses of Christians in another commune in Dien Bien Dong district, and that he was trying to arrange shelter for the affected families. The leader said the authorities of Dien Bien Dong district completely exempt themselves from Vietnam's laws on religion and suffer no reprimand from above.
After Po was first detained on Dec. 1, Dien Bien Dong District and Na Son Commune police and soldiers led by policeman Hang A Senh took him and his wife to the Na Son Commune People's Committee office after police earlier incited local residents to abuse and stone them and other Christian families. After Po and his wife were beaten at 1 a.m. that night, he was fined 8 million dong (US$430) and a pig of at least 16 kilos.
Abuses Elsewhere
In Phu Yen Province in the south of Vietnam, religious intolerance was also on display as local police dragged a pastor behind a motorbike, Christian leaders reported.
Village police summoned Y Du, a 55-year-old pastor also from the Ede ethnic group, to a police station for questioning on Jan. 27. While driving his motorbike to the station, Pastor Du was stopped by village police who chained his hands together and then attached the chain by rope to his motorbike.
Christian sources said they forced Pastor Du to run behind the motorbike that they had commandeered, and he fell over many times, dragged along the ground. He was beaten and forced to keep running.
Local villagers at Hai Rieng witnessed what was happening and, fearing for the pastor's life, shouted to the police to stop, the Christian leaders said. Du was then carried to the police station and was incarcerated in Phu Lam prison, Phu Lam district, Phu Yen Province. No formal charges were brought against him.
Local police subsequently visited his wife at their home, looking for evidence of illegal activity, Christian leaders reported. The officers said they suspected ties with organizers of demonstrations against confiscation of minority land and lack of religious freedom that were held six years ago.
Christian leaders said the police officers tried to bribe Pastor Du's wife to renounce her Christian faith, saying, "If you renounce your faith, we will build you a new house and give you rice." The family is poor and lives in a bamboo house. She replied, "I would rather die than renounce my faith."
In mid-February, local police told Pastor Du's wife that they could not find anything with which to charge her husband. But they said they continued to hold him because he refused to denounce the leader of a Bible school in Dak Lak Province, Pastor Mai Hong Sanh. Pastor Du was regularly beaten, Christians leaders reported.
Another evangelist, Pastor Y Co also from the Ede ethnic group, had also been held at Phu Lam prison, Phu Lam district, Phu Yen Province in the same conditions, they said. Pastor Du and Pastor Co were reportedly released around March 20, though first-hand reports of their prison experiences have not yet been released.
Both Pastor Du and Co are evangelists with the Vietnam Good News Mission Church.
