Vietnamese Authorities Raid House Churches and Threaten Attendees

Compass Direct News reports

HANOI – Local authorities in Vietnam have balked at registering house churches, contributing to a recent uptick in sometimes violent harassment of congregations.

Four police officers and two government officials broke up the Sunday morning worship service of a house church in Tran Phu Commune in Hanoi on July 26, announcing that it was illegal to worship and teach religion. The police chief of Tran Phu Commune in greater Hanoi, Dang Dinh Toi, had ordered the raid.

When Christians under the leadership of Pastor Dang Thi Dinh refused to sign a document admitting they were meeting illegally, an angry police officer shouted, “If I find you meeting here next Sunday, I will kill you all like I’d kill a dog”

Read the full report at Compass Direct News.

Police Attack House Church in Vietnam, Leaders Jailed

Compass Direct News reports

HANOI – Police invaded the Sunday service of the Agape Baptist congregation in Vietnam’s Hung Yen Province on June 7 and beat worshippers, including women, and arrested a pastor and an elder.

Christian sources said police put the two church leaders into separate cells, and each man was beaten by a gang of five policemen. Pastor Duong Van Tuan of the house church in Hamlet 3, Ong Dinh Commune, Khoai Chau district said that officers beat them in a way that did not leave marks: hard blows to the stomach.

The beatings came in retaliation for Pastor Tuan refusing to leave the area as police had ordered, Christian sources said. He and the church elder were released later that evening.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

American being held in Ho Chi Minh City for sharing the Gospel of Jesus – Again

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM ANS — A close friend of Dr. Paul Ai Tran, a much persecuted Vietnamese Christian leader whom the communist authorities grew so frustrated with because of his prolific church planting efforts that they deported him from Vietnam in 1999 to the United States, has told ANS that Tran is being held under “city” arrest in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. Read the rest of this entry »

Video – Persecution in Vietnam

From Release Internatinal, this special report from Vietnam, filmed on location. It features interviews with two wives whose husbands have been tortured and jailed for calling for freedom of worship and the return of land seized by the authorities. An ex-prisoner also paints a picture of brutality and overcoming faith behind bars.

Government Destroys New Church Building in Vietnam

Compass Direct News reports:

HO CHI MINH CITY, December 17 – Local government officials in Dak Lak Province this morning made good on their threat to destroy a new wooden church building erected in September by Hmong Christians in Cu Hat village.

At 7 a.m. in Cu Dram Commune, Krong Bong district, a large contingent of government officials, police and demolition workers arrived at the site of a Vietnam Good News Mission and Church, razing it by 8:30 a.m. Police wielding electric cattle prods beat back hundreds of distraught Christians who rushed to the site to protect the building.

Five injured people were taken away in an emergency vehicle authorities had brought to the scene. The injured included a child who suffered a broken arm and a pregnant woman who fainted after being poked in the stomach with an electric cattle prod. Villagers said they fear she may miscarry.

By day’s end one badly injured woman had not yet been returned to the village, and authorities would not divulge where she was.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.