Luy Gonzaga Nguyen Quang Hoa (46) was attacked on 23 February as he was making his way home to Kon Hring after taking a funeral service in another village.

He said:
On the way back to my parish, three strangers on motorbikes came after me and beat me around the head, back, stomach and arms with two iron bars.

He came off his motorbike and was beaten until he passed out. The pastor suffered multiple injuries and cuts. The attackers damaged his motorbike and threw his watch into a nearby lake.

They had reportedly just been released from prison and apparently have connections with the local authorities, who try to prevent Christian ministers from taking services and funerals. Such groups are hired to attack church leaders and Christians in Kon Tum province in the central highlands, which the government has declared a “no religion zone”.

In a challenge to the authorities, the Bishop of Kon Tum, Michael Hoang Duc Oanh, has announced that he will take an Easter service in the parish where Luy was attacked.

He has previously defied the Communist regime’s efforts to restrict religious freedom. Last Easter the bishop took services in the Montagnard village of Son Lang, where he had been prevented from leading Christmas celebrations a few months before. Afterwards, Bishop Michael and a local minister were detained by the police and interrogated for hours.

The Vietnamese authorities often harass and intimidate the country’s Christians. Unregistered churches and ethnic minority Christians in the central highlands and northwest provinces are particularly vulnerable to persecution.

Officials break up meetings, confiscate religious literature, and arrest and beat up Christians. Some are pressured to renounce their faith publicly, and hundreds have been sentenced to long prison terms.

The attack on a church leaders’ worship service of an Agape Baptist Church (ABC) house church in Lai Tao village, Bot Xuyen commune, My Duc district left one woman, evangelist Nguyen Thi Lan, with her pelvis broken in two places and with badly damaged internal organs, according to doctors who recommended emergency surgery. Yet previously doctors at three area hospitals had told her and two other seriously injured Christians that they were fine and dismissed them, said Pastor Nguyen Cong Thanh, head of the ABC.

When doctors in Vietnam learn that religious motives play a role in violence, commonly they do not dare to treat or even examine the victims of persecution.

ABC head Nguyen Cong Thanh had rushed north from his base in Ho Chi Minh City to help the church members. The attack took place in the home of the injured Nguyen Thi Lan (not that of pastor Nguyen Danh Chau as previously reported), a recently retired Communist Party official who converted to Christianity only last year.

Within that short time she had led some 50 extended family members, friends and neighbors to the Christian faith, angering a fellow villager identified only by his given name, Khoan. Khoan and his son led a gang into her house and beat several people, leaving pastor Nguyen Danh Chau unconscious and destroying property, sources said. Khoan repeatedly threatened to kill Nguyen Thi Lan, and the gang of about a dozen threatened to kill Nguyen Danh Chau if he continued gathering Christians for worship, the sources said.

ABC head Nguyen Cong Thanh said he tried to obtain medical examinations and treatment for the worst wounded in several government clinics and hospitals in the region, but the injured were continually told they needed no care. After a nearly a week, the three most severely injured Christians still suffered acute pain, and they suspected serious internal injuries, he said.

Late Friday (Nov. 18), five days after the attack, staff members at one hospital told Nguyen Cong Thanh that there would be no examinations the next day and Sunday, and to come back on Monday (Nov. 21), when examinations were possible.

At that point ABC leaders decided to take the two injured women and wounded man to Ho Chi Minh City, a 1,000-mile, two-hour flight south. They reasoned that even if government hospitals would not take them, they would certainly find some doctors with a conscience in private hospitals, even though such hospitals would be expensive and would require a full-payment deposit before examination and treatment.

Nguyen Thi Lan, who had not been able to eat since the attack, was admitted to a hospital immediately after her examination, as the doctors discovered her doubly broken pelvis and severely injured female organs.

Pastor Nguyen Danh Chau, who had severe bruises on his face and head, had also been kicked in his back, chest and stomach. Doctors diagnosed internal injuries to his kidneys, liver and perhaps other organs. He too was admitted for further observation and treatment. Nguyen Thi Tac, who had been hit with a steel shovel on her chest and stomach as well as her back, was also still in considerable pain, but a medical examination found no serious internal injuries and she was not admitted to the hospital.

In Khoan’s rants during the attack, sources said, he charged that the land, now legally owned by Nguyen Thi Lan, had once belonged to his ancestors, implying that the ancestors would be angry that the current residents no longer worshipped them. Blurry cell-phone photos of the attack show a sullen Khoan in a tug-of-war with a woman trying to hang on to the wooden cross he had torn off the wall of the large room the Christians used for worship.

The invading gang destroyed furniture and seriously damaged motorbikes, a small vegetable garden and fruit trees before leaving (see ” “House Church Leaders Attacked near Hanoi, Vietnam,” ), sources said.

The injured Christians wrote a petition to police indicating the articles of the criminal code that had been violated, but officers have done nothing about Khoan’s death threats nor helped to redress the damage done to the Christians and their property.

While not opposing the attempt at securing legal redress, the affected Christians’ top leader, Nguyen Cong Thanh, encouraged the injured Christians to show forbearance.

“I pray that you will patiently endure your suffering for Jesus’ sake without bitterness,” he told them. “Know that the blood you spilled is now joined with Christ’s blood in suffering.”

He said officials have failed to prosecute the perpetrators.

“They remain beyond the reach of the law and dare the authorities and the Christians, saying, ‘If we are not imprisoned, we will surely murder Ms. Lan if she ever returns.’”

A long-time Vietnam religious liberty advocate said there is a growing pattern of strong social persecution in Vietnam where new Christian groups flourish.

“It is also the pattern that local police and government officials are loathe to prosecute those who harm Christians or to extend protection to threatened Christian believers,” he said. “In this incident, Christians recognized some police and local officials dressed in civilian clothes among those who took part in the original attack on the house church on Nov. 13.”

HANOI, Vietnam (Compass Direct News) – A gang of men attacked leaders of a Baptist house church network near Hanoi on Sunday (Nov. 13), leaving one pastor unconscious and seriously injuring several others, including women and teenage children.

Leaders of the Agape Baptist Church were participating in a spiritual renewal meeting at the home of pastor Nguyen Danh Chau in Lai Tao village, Bot Xuyen commune, My Duc district, when the gang intruded at 9:30 a.m., sources said. Beating people and smashing property, the gang seriously injured more than a dozen participants and warned Nguyen Danh Chau that they would kill him if he continued gathering Christians, the sources in Vietnam said.

With the attack underway, the sources said, some gang members ran outside and announced to the neighborhood, “Oh heavens, the Christian pastors are savagely beating up people!” This attracted a large crowd, which the gang hoped would prevent any Christians from escaping.

The seriously injured Christians included five male pastors, four female pastors and other church leaders, and several of the leaders’ teenage children. The worst wounded, Nguyen Danh Chau, lay unconscious for many hours, and as of midnight Tuesday (Nov. 15), he was still suffering severe chest, stomach and head pain.

One pastor’s wife, Nguyen Thi Lan, was still unable to walk and function normally at press time after she was struck in the stomach and groin. Others remained weak from loss of blood. The Christians were punched in the mouth and face, the chest and the back. Some were savagely kicked as they lay on the floor.

The denomination’s top leader, Nguyen Cong Thanh, who rushed up from the south to visit the beleaguered leaders, reported that he planned to take the injured to a nearby hospital today; he feared, however, that he would encounter resistance. When doctors in Vietnam learn that religious motives play a role in violence, commonly they do not dare to treat or even examine the victims of persecution.

Attacking on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, observed worldwide by thousands of churches affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance, the gang smashed a dozen plastic chairs, overturned a pulpit and tore a cross from the wall and threw it into a nearby pond, leaving no doubt as to their motivation. They also stole valuable parts from four motorcycles belonging to the pastors before smashing the remainder of the vehicles. Valued at more than US$1,000 each, the motorbikes represent a huge loss for the church leaders.

Before leaving, the gang stopped long enough to destroy the family’s kitchen garden and fruit trees, sources said.

The Agape Baptist Church is an unregistered house church organization of some 2,200 members who worship regularly in 38 congregations. It was established in 2007. Many of the congregations are located in or near Hanoi and nearby provinces.

Agape Baptist Church head Nguyen Cong Thanh said in a statement Tuesday morning (Nov. 15) that he had met with the injured.

“All they could do was weep, and I also could not prevent my tears from flowing,” he said. “Why do they gratuitously beat servants of the Lord like this – what crime have they committed, what enemies have they made? All we want to do is gather people to worship and serve God and our fellowman. And not only that – the gang destroyed four motorcycles and stole safety helmets, shoes and rain coats from people with very modest means. God have mercy!”

In the past few years, official policy toward religion in Vietnam is ostensibly more tolerant than it was previously, so it has become a pattern for police and higher authorities to employ gangs for such anti-Christian attacks, according to Christian leaders in Vietnam. The gang members are rarely identified and never prosecuted.

Vietnam’s ranking among countries with persecution of Christians slipped slightly on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2011 World Watch List. With No. 1 being the worst, Vietnam’s place on the list deteriorated from No. 21 to number No. 18 last year.

Twice on the same Sunday that local authorities disrupted a house church service in Phu Quy village near Tam Ky, Quang Nam Province, a gang of about 20 men attacked the father, brother and other family members of pastor Thien An, who was locked in a secure room as his family believed the gang sought to kill him, sources said.

Police had visited his home the week prior to “investigate” the house church, whose application for registration authorities have twice denied, according to the pastor. Church members echoed the sentiment of one Christian that “even a child” could figure out the connection between the gang and the public security police who disrupted their service that morning.

Pastor Thien told the officers he would meet with them after the service, but they barged into the meeting and pulled the plug on the sound system, according to a letter distributed on the Internet from Pastor Thien addressed to “all in the world with a conscience.” When church members protested, one officer yelled and threatened to hit the pastor’s father, according to his report.

After some time, the “angry police officers, full of threats, left our house of prayer,” according to the pastor.

The report said that at 1 p.m. the same day, some 20 gang members, many of them large and sporting tattoos, came to the house church when only the pastor and his extended family were home. Believing the gang had come to murder the pastor, his family urged him to retreat into a secure, locked interior room.

As the gang members struck his father, brother and others trying to defend the pastor and his family, which included a 1-week-old infant boy, the family prayed hard even as they vigorously resisted. Finally the gang left on their motorcycles threatening to return to “bring this house of God to the ground, and kill all of you,” the pastor reported.

During the attack, Pastor Thien called four levels of police and security officials, but, strangely, no one answered. After the gang left, he called the chief of the provincial police department and secured a promise to investigate.

Alerted by cell phone, church members rushed to the house to support the pastor and his family and prayed with them. Assuming things had settled down, they left in the early evening. But at 8:30 p.m., as the family was locked into their home, they were alarmed at the sound of shouting and breaking glass.

Pastor Thien was anxious to defend his family, but they restrained him from going out to confront the gang, saying he was their main target. As the gang wielding iron bars and wooden clubs viciously attacked Pastor Thien’s father and several others outside the secure room in which the pastor and his family were locked, gang members stationed outside prevented anyone from coming to help.

The gang managed to smash the glass of the door to the secure room, but Pastor Thien’s father, younger brother and an uncle miraculously managed to fend off the attackers, who finally retreated with their weapons, according to the report. Calls to various police offices during this attack also went unanswered, the pastor added.

Photos taken after this attack and posted on YouTube show head wounds on the defenders, blood on the floor and smashed windows. They also record the loud, anguished prayers for justice. Pastor Thien’s younger brother collapsed when the gang retreated and announced he was about to die, but the pastor prayed for him, and some five minutes later he was revived.

The house church, part of the Vietnam Baptist Church (VBC), is the larger of two legally registered denominations related to the U.S. Southern Baptist Church. Though the denomination is fully and nationally registered, local officials apparently consider the well-established congregation in Phu Quy village to be illegal.

The pastor, who reported that local authorities had refused two attempts to register his church, stated that police have summoned some of his members, especially young women, and strongly pressured them to stop worshipping there; some succumbed to serious threats and signed documents pledging to do so.

Police also recently summoned the pastor and warned that if he continued convening worship, they would not take responsibility if someone attacked it, he reported.

The Quang Nam provincial leader of the VBC contacted by Compass did not visit the affected church until the following Sunday (Oct. 30). He confirmed the incident had taken place and said the church met without incident that day.

Pastor Thien’s superior said he would try again to help the church to register with local authorities.

Several days after the attack, top officials of the VBC in Ho Chi Minh City reported that they had not received Pastor Thien’s appeal and seemed oddly reluctant to publicly support their beleaguered congregation in Tam Ky. Reliable sources told Compass that the leaders’ reluctance stemmed from fear of confronting authorities and putting at risk what they consider a good relationship with the government.

The pastor’s appeal and the subsequent YouTube clips, however, were widely distributed by other church leaders in Vietnam who were incensed and sickened by the blatant attack on fellow Christian worshippers.

“Even if there were irregularities on the church side in the registration process, it could in no way justify such a brutal attack in which government authorities are complicit,” one house church leader in Vietnam told Compass. “But this is still our country’s version of rule-of-law.”

WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) – A violent attack against indigenous minority Christians in the central highlands of Vietnam took place this past July, leaving sixteen men and women severely injured and one man still under arrest; his welfare remains unknown to date.

ICC (International Christian Concern) www.persecution.org says the systematic persecution of X Degar Montagnard Christians continues, with this brutal attack as proof of the regime’s purposeful policing, harassment, and aggressive oppression of this indigenous people and minority religious group.

In a media advisory, ICFC says that on July 7, 2011, at approximately 8 o’clock in the evening, Vietnamese security forces and police descended upon a worship service in the village of Buon Kret Krot (H’Ra commune, Mang Yang district, Plei Ku city, in Gai Lai province), and began kicking and beating the attendees.

According to ICC, security forces threatened the villagers, stating: “If anyone worships like this way, we will return to arrest you all and put you in prison for five years.”

The ICC report states that twelve men and four women were beaten, and of these, ten men and two women were violently beaten to unconsciousness.

ICC said police beat A Jung, a 29-year old male, repeatedly with a baton until he collapsed to the ground where they continued to kick and stomp on his stomach and back until he lost consciousness. A Jung was taken away by police and remains in custody; he has likely experienced torture while imprisoned.

Other villagers were beaten with batons, firearms and tree branches, and kicked and stomped upon by the Vietnamese security forces. The youngest victim was Y Kang, a 13-year old girl.

ICC explained that “Vietnam has a long-standing practice of policing, harassing, and arresting Christians who are unaffiliated with the government-sanctioned and only legally-recognized religious bodies in the nation.”

According to Scott Johnson, with the Montagnard Foundation, “The Vietnamese government has targeted indigenous Degar Montagnards for simply being members of Christian house churches, in a long running policy designed to eliminate independent Christian house churches.

“Hundreds of Degar Montagnards remain in prison today and in custody many prisoners are brutally tortured and even killed. There is a shameful silence from the international community, including the United Nations and State Department, as to the plight of these forgotten prisoners even while the evidence of systematic religious persecution is overwhelming.”

According to Human Rights Watch, since 2001 more than 350 Degar Montagnards have been arrested and sentenced to long prison sentences on vaguely-defined charges that are considered to be subversive to the Vietnamese regime.

ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeastern Asia, Kris Elliott, said, “We call upon the Vietnamese government to cease this systematic practice of violence and persecution against Christians, especially Degar Montagnards. We also urge the US Department of State to once again designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern, as conditions for religious minorities have vastly deteriorated since the designation was lifted in 2006.

“A CPC designation backed by strong US policies has the potential to pave a path towards significant improvements for Christians and other religious minorities in Vietnam.”

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441 or 301-585-5915.

VIETNAM (ANS) — The Vietnamese government has intensified repression of indigenous minority Christians from the country’s Central Highland provinces who are pressing for religious freedom and land rights, Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) has said in a just released report.

The 46-page report, “Montagnard Christians in Vietnam: A Case Study in Religious Repression,” details the latest government crackdowns on these indigenous peoples, known collectively as Montagnards. The report documents police sweeps to root out Montagnards in hiding. It details how the authorities have dissolved house church gatherings, orchestrated coerced renunciations of faith, and sealed off the border to prevent asylum seekers from fleeing to Cambodia.

Human Rights Watch found that special “political security” (PA43) units conduct operations with provincial police to capture, detain, and interrogate people they identify as political activists or leaders of unregistered house churches. More than 70 Montagnards have been detained or arrested in 2010 alone, and more than 250 are known to be imprisoned on national security charges.

“Montagnards face harsh persecution in Vietnam, particularly those who worship in independent house churches, because the authorities don’t tolerate religious activity outside their sight or control,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “The Vietnamese government has been steadily tightening the screws on independent Montagnards religious groups, claiming they are using religion to incite unrest.”

Human Rights Watch documented the abuses in the Central Highlands, which is off-limits to independent, international rights groups, through interviews with Montagnards who have fled Vietnam and reports in Vietnam’s government-controlled media.

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, one Montagnard described his treatment at T-20, the provincial prison in Gia Lai, after he was arrested for participating in a protest calling for religious freedom and land rights:

He said, “They questioned me at any time, even midnight. The police would get drunk, wake me up, and question me and beat me. They put me in handcuffs when they took me out for questioning. The handcuffs were like wire – very tight. They used electric shock on me every time they interrogated me. They would shock me on my knees, saying, ‘You used these legs to walk to the demonstration.’”

Sentenced to five years in prison for “violating national solidarity,” he remains partially deaf from repeatedly being boxed on both ears:

“They would stand facing me and shout: ‘One, two, three!’ and then use both hands to box both of my ears at the same time. They would do this three times, the last time putting strong pressure on the ears,” he went on to say. “Blood came out of my ears and my nose. I went crazy from this. It was so painful, and also the build-up made me very afraid and tense.”

The government says that Montagnards, who belong to unregistered house churches outside the control of the official Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam, are “Dega Protestants,” which authorities allege is not a legitimate religious group but a cover for a Montagnard independence movement. Vietnamese law requires all religious groups to register with the government and operate under government-approved religious organizations.

Human Rights Watch called on the Vietnamese government to immediately end its systematic repression of Montagnards, allow independent religious organizations to conduct religious activities freely, and release all Montagnards imprisoned for peaceful religious or political activities. Until Vietnam improves its record on religious freedom, Human Rights Watch calls on the US government to reinstate Vietnam’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for violations of religious freedom.

Using official Vietnamese media sources, Human Rights Watch documented the controversial practice of forced recantations of faith. Government officials have forced hundreds of Montagnard Catholics and Protestants to renounce their religion in public criticism sessions, violating internationally protected rights to freedom of religion and conscience. Those who resist and insist on their right to independent worship facing beatings, arrest, and imprisonment.

Provincial courts often hold “mobile trials” of people charged with national security crimes before hundreds of people, reinforcing the message not to follow unsanctioned religious groups.

“Freedom of religion does not mean freedom for state-sanctioned religions only,” Robertson said. “Vietnam should immediately recognize independent religious groups and let them practice their beliefs.”

While Protestant Montagnards have faced repression for many years, Catholic Montagnards have more recently become a target, particularly the “Ha Mon” Catholic sect, which started in Kon Tum in 1999. During 2010, officials charged that Montagnard exiles in the United States were manipulating the popular sect to undermine national unity. Forced renunciation ceremonies and public criticism meetings have been conducted in recent months in Kon Tum, Gia Lai, and Dak Lak provinces for Ha Mon followers, in which they are forced to confess to wrongdoings and to sign pledges to abandon the so-called “false religion.”

“People in the Central Highlands who wish to worship in independent house churches risk public humiliation, violent reprisals, arrest, and even prison time,” Robertson said.

The more than 250 Montagnards in prison or awaiting trial are charged with national security crimes such as “undermining national solidarity.” Many former Montagnard political prisoners and detainees report that they were severely beaten or tortured in police custody and pre-trial detention. Since 2001, at least 25 Montagnards have died in prisons, jails, or police lock-ups after beatings or illnesses sustained while in custody, or shortly after being prematurely released by prison authorities to a hospital or home.

Examples of forced renunciations of faith and harassment of peaceful activists at public criticism meetings in the Central Highlands covered by Vietnamese state media in recent months include:

* In November 2010, Bao Gia Lai, the newspaper of the Gia Lai province Communist Party, reported on the ongoing “Struggle to Eliminate Dega Protestantism” in Ia Grai and Duc Co districts of Gia Lai, where border soldiers were breaking up so-called “reactionary gangs” of Dega Protestants in the border areas and bringing them in for public criticism sessions.

* In October 2010, Bao Gia Lai reported that 567 households related to Dega Protestantism were “renouncing” the religion in Krong Pa district, Gia Lai, with the commune chief making daily visits to pressure 15 households who eventually pledged to abandon their religion.

* During September 2010, Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police) newspaper reported that police in collaboration with local officials organized several public criticism ceremonies in Duc Co district, Gia Lai. In one session on September 29, 50 people from four villages in Duc Co district, Gia Lai, were summoned to be formally criticized in front of crowds of commune residents for having “disrupted security and order” during unrest at a rubber plantation on August 25, 2010. After admitting their wrongdoings, the report says, they pledged to abandon Dega Protestantism and other “reactionary” groups.

* On July 12, 2010, Bao Gia Lai reported that 97 households, or 297 people, “voluntarily” abandoned Dega Protestantism in the villages of Tok and Roh, Chu Se district, Gia Lai.

* On June 6, 2010, as part of an official public ceremony in Dak Mil district, Dak Nong province to begin a “mass movement to protect national security,” Bao Dak Nong, the newspaper of the Dak Nong province Communist Party, reported, two men were brought forward to publicly confess to supporting Dega Protestantism and other “reactionary” groups.

Since 2001, thousands of Montagnards in Vietnam have fled harsh government crackdowns to Cambodia, where most have been recognized as refugees and resettled to the United States, Sweden, Finland, and Canada.

In December 2010, the Cambodian government ordered the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to close the Montagnard refugee center in Phnom Penh. With the center’s closure on February 15, 2011, Montagnards seeking to escape repression in Vietnam are left with fewer options.

“Montagnards will continue to try to flee Vietnam as long as the Vietnamese government systematically violates their basic rights,” said Robertson. “The Vietnamese government needs to end this repression immediately.”

SPARTANBURG, SC (ANS) — Vietnamese security police have been implicated in the torture and death of a Montagnard Degar Christian believer.

Siu Wong, who was born in 1972 in the village of Bon Broac II, commune of Hdok, district of Dak Doa in the province of Gia Lai, married a woman named Ksor H’Boan, and was living with her at the village of Ploi Ksing, commune of Ia Piar, district of Phu Thien in the province of Gia Lai. They have six small children.

According to the Montagnard Foundation, Inc. (MFI), www.montagnard-foundation.org , which is dedicated to the preservation of the indigenous people of Central Vietnam, at around 7 a.m. on the morning of September 25, 2009, a security police officer from the communal village of Ia Piar and a security police officer from the district of Phu Thien, both dressed as civilians, went to Brother Siu Wong’s house and ordered him to go with them to their office in the district of Phu Thien.

In a report from the MFI obtained by ANS, when Siu Wong and the police officers arrived at their station, the security police asked Siu Wong if he intended to celebrate Christmas this December.

Wong replied, “Yes, of course I will celebrate Christmas and this is what we do every year.” The police then told Wong that Degar people are not allowed to celebrate Christmas and are not allowed to worship God.

“Moreover,” says MFI, “they were so angry at Wong because he had bravely admitted he was a Christian, that they began to mock him, threatening to punish him like Jesus was punished.”

MFI says the security officers then tied up Wong’s left arm to one of the house poles and his right arm to another pole — stretching him out like was on the cross.

“Then they began to beat and torture him. They kicked him on both sides of his ribs and his chest with their heavy military boots, struck him on the back of his neck, punched him in his face and continued to beat him even after fell in and our of consciousness, limply hanging by his two arms.

“They kicked him in his groin with their boots and he completely passed out. They continued to savagely beat him until his injuries became apparently fatal. Then, the security police officers took him back to his family to die.”

MFI says that at home, Siu Wong’s family did not have money to take him to the hospital so they treated his injuries as best as they could at home. His condition continued to deteriorate, however, and so his family sold everything they had and took him to the hospital on February 25, 2010.

MFI stated: “The internal injuries received from the beating could not be repaired and Siu Wong died in the hospital on March 4 of 2010. His parents took his corpse back to their village of Bon Broac II, commune of Hdok, district of Dak Doa in the province of Gia Lai and buried him there. His wife and six children moved in with his parents because no one else can provide for them.”

An MFI spokesman said: “We would like to let the world to know that when the Vietnamese security police arrest and torture Degar Christians, even if they do not immediately die, the police know how to inflict injuries that will be fatal after their victims return home.”

MFI added: “The officers are trained and very skillful in their techniques and they are able to destroy a person’s internal organs so that they die days, weeks or even months later. Even though the Christians are officially released, they still die and so the sentence is still the same — death.”

According to MFI, the indigenous Degar people, have been crying out to the world since 1958 after the French left Indochina in 1954, “but our cries have been repeatedly ignored by the world.”

MFI concludes: “It is dangerous and often fatal to be a Christian in the highlands of Vietnam because the government seems to hate Jesus. Our brothers and sisters bravely follow Christ even though they are being tortured and murdered for it. Because the world will not help us, we appeal to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world.

“If you will not stand up for Degar Christians or help us, please at least pray for us. Pray that we might receive the strength of the Lord so that we can endure. We know that if we can endure this persecution for the sake of Christ, our blessings in heaven will be great. Therefore, pray that we do not lose hope and falter in our walk with God.”

PLEIKU CITY, VIETNAM (ANS) — International Christian Concern (ICC), Christian human rights group, says that it has discovered that an imprisoned Montagnard Christian died in Vietnam on March 11, 2010, from internal bleeding after a “long period of abuse and torture.”

ICC told the ASSIST News Service (ANS) that K’pa Lot, a Montagnard believer, was originally arrested on May 20th, 2007, for “publicly expressing his Christian faith,” and imprisoned in Phu Yen province.

An ICC spokesperson said, “He was kept separate from other prisoners and relocated whenever community and international agencies visited to monitor prison conditions. On March 9th, 2010, K’Pa was taken from the prison to a hospital in Pleiku city.

“In the past, Vietnamese authorities have released prisoners just prior to death in order to keep it off the official record.”

Scott Johnson, a spokesman for the Montagnard Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the Montagnard people of central Vietnam — www.montagnard-foundation.org — describes the state that K’Pa Lot was in when he arrived at the hospital.

“His family could not recognize him,” said Johnson. “He was swollen and had bruises all over his body and face. He could not move or eat, and could barely speak.

“K’Pa whispered to his wife in his native language and told her about how he was regularly tortured inside prison, beaten on a daily basis by the authorities. He said they beat him with whatever they had in their hands as if they wanted him to die.”

According to the Montagnard Foundation, security officials forced the family to quickly bury his body. K’Pa Lot, who was 31 at the time of his death, is survived by his wife and two children.

ICC’s Regional Manager, Logan Maurer, told ANS, “K’Pa’s torture and death exposes the true state of religious freedom in Vietnam. In 2006 the US State Department removed Vietnam from the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list, citing progress in religious freedom.

“Clearly events like this show what really is happening behind closed doors; religious freedom in Vietnam is a convenient falsehood. We urge the US and other governments to exert influence all on Vietnam to improve its treatment of religious minorities.”

To find out more about the documentation of “Ethnic Cleansing” implemented against the indigenous Degar Montagnard People by the Vietnamese communist government, go to: http://deathinthehighlands.com

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information go to: www.persecution.org.

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.

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.