Christians Livestock Seized and Slaughtered by Laotian Officials

Compass Direct News reports

Last Sunday July 5 officials and residents of Katin village in Ta Oih district, Saravan province, Laos, confiscated and slaughtered livestock belonging to nine Christian families in an effort to force them to renounce their faith.

In June village elders had warned the families, 53 people in total, to renounce the faith they had adopted in late May or face “serious consequences,” according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom HRWLRF.

When the Christians ignored this warning and attended worship services in a neighboring village, villagers broke into their pig pens and seized one pig per family, later slaughtering the animals and distributing the meat among themselves, according to HRWLRF.

Officials said the seizure of the pigs – each worth the equivalent of six weeks’ salary for an average laborer in the area – was a form of punishment for ignoring the order to abandon Christianity.

The slaughter followed a similar “punishment” meted out last September, when officials seized a buffalo worth approximately US$350 from a Christian resident identified only as Bounchu, telling him the animal would be returned only if he renounced his faith. When he refused, they slaughtered the animal in the village square, distributing the meat to non-Christian residents.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News