Lao Authorities Arrest Christians in Two Northern Provinces
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Pastor Dale Morgan
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Jul 26, 2011, 3:59:12 PM7/26/11
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Faith
Under Fire......
Lao Authorities Arrest Christians in Two Northern Provinces
Two pastors, others charged with ‘spreading a foreign religion’
and ordered to cease worship.
DUBLIN, July 26 (CDN) — Authorities in a village in northern Laos
have ordered all Christian residents to cease meeting for worship
in private homes following the arrest of four Christians on July
10, rights advocates said.
Also on July 10, police arrested a Christian in Luang Prabang
Province, ordering him to abandon his faith or face imprisonment,
according to a statement from the advocacy group Human Rights
Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).
In Luang Namtha Province, Pastor Seng Aroun of Kon church in
Namtha district, and three other Christians from Sounya village
church identified only as Souchiad, Naikwang and Kofa had met at
Kofa’s house for Sunday worship on July 10, HRWLRF reported. Kofa
had also asked them for advice regarding a vehicle accident in May
in which he had unwittingly caused the death of another person.
After the service, provincial authorities arrested all four men
and detained them at Luang Namtha’s provincial prison. On July 13
they released all but Pastor Aroun, who remained in detention at
press time, and ordered all Christians in Sounya village to cease
meeting in private homes for worship, according to HRWLRF.
Christians in Sounya village have faced opposition from
authorities since the initial conversion of some 400 residents in
2002. Since then police have conducted three waves of arrests of
core church leaders. In 2009, two truckloads of police and
military personnel tore down the Sounya church building, and
authorities banned Christians from gathering for worship.
In 2010, the Christians began meeting occasionally in small
groups. By January they were once again able to meet in private
homes for Sunday worship, HRWLRF reported, but that limited
freedom has now been removed.
‘Spreading a Foreign Religion’
In Luang Prabang Province, police on July 10 approached Vong Veu,
a Christian resident of Pookong village, and ordered him to
abandon his faith and return to traditional spirit worship or
animism. When Veu refused, officers arrested him and detained him
without trial at Viengkham district prison, where he remained at
press time, HRWLRF reported.
In March a group of new Christians in Pookong had asked Abee Weng,
an elder of Fasouk Church in Luang Prabang city, to assist them in
practicing the faith. Weng, along with three other church members
identified only as Pachua, Boulevang and Kae, came to Pookong on
March 28 and instructed the new converts to burn or destroy items
associated with spirit worship, according to HRWLRF.
District police arrested Weng and his assistants as they returned
home on March 29 and charged them with “spreading a foreign
religion and eradicating Lao traditional religion,” though Weng
asserted that he had not converted the group but had simply
responded to their request for instruction. Police then held the
men at Viengkham district prison until, four days later,
provincial religious affairs and police officers intervened and
secured their release, HRWLRF reported.
As the former ancient capital of Laos, the city of Luang Prabang
is a World Heritage site. In the early 1990s officials heavily
persecuted Christians in the surrounding province under the
pretext of “preserving” that heritage. More recently the
provincial religious affairs office has publicly relaxed its
policies, but district officials have maintained their oppression
of those who follow non-traditional religions, particularly
Christianity.
In Udomsai Province, HRWLRF has also drawn attention to the case
of 58-year-old Bounchan Kanthavong of Vanghai village, who is
nearing the end of a 12-year prison sentence issued in 1999
following his conversion to Christianity and bold preaching of the
faith. In April, Kanthavong told his wife, Sengkham, during a
prison visit that officials recently said they were willing to
release him if he renounced the Christian faith and separated from
her; Sengkham is now the leading figure in Vangsai village’s
Protestant church.
Kanthavong warned Sengkham just days before his arrest in June
1999 that officials were likely to seize him because of his
Christian activities; shortly thereafter they arrested him, but on
charges of “treason and sedition.” An investigation by his wife
and others revealed that the charges were based on Kanthavong’s
participation in a Bible training seminar and on his leading role
in the conversion of at least 70 people to Christianity. These
actions allegedly made them answerable to a “foreign power”
instead of the Lao authorities.
Following Kanthavong’s arrest, his wife took over leadership of
the small Christian community, which today has grown to over 3,000
people.
HRWLRF has urged the Lao government to reconsider Kanthavong’s
conviction and release him immediately on grounds that his
exercise of religious freedom in 1999 was guaranteed by the Lao
constitution and should not have been deemed an act of treason or
sedition.
Wanna and Yohan
In Khammouan Province, pastors Wanna and Yohan, both identified
only by a single name, also remain behind bars despite an
eight-point appeal by the Center for Public Policy Analysis in
Washington, D.C. and a coalition of international NGOs in March,
just prior to the ninth Lao Communist Party Congress. Only Wanna
is specifically named in the statement.
“We are appealing to the Lao government to immediately release
Pastor Wanna and others who seek political reform and religious
freedom in Laos,” one of the signatories, Bounthanh Rathigna,
president of the United League for Democracy in Laos, said in a
press statement.
The fourth point of the appeal called for the government to “cease
religious freedom violations, persecution and harassment of
independent Laotian and Hmong Christian, Animist and Buddhist
believers, including Laotian Christian Pastor Wanna, who has been
repeatedly arrested and beaten along with other Lao Christian
believers.”
Arrested on Jan. 4, Wanna and Yohan along with eight other
Christians, including two children, were officially charged with
“gathering for the purpose of creating turbulent unrest.”
Both Wanna and Yohan’s children have faced abuse and rejection
from other children in their villages due to their fathers’
detentions, according to a spokesman from HRWLRF.
The spokesman said Wanna is no longer in solitary confinement.
“At the beginning he was in solitary confinement, but now he’s
living among the others, and he’s being let out to get some air,”
the spokesman told Compass. Due to weakness possibly caused by
malnutrition, he said, “a doctor is also treating him with
antibiotics, glucose and saline through an intravenous drip in the
prison.” (See www.compassdirect.org, “Imprisoned Lao Pastor
‘Extremely Weak,’ Family Says,” July 8.)
The chief of Nakoon village has also visited Wanna’s wife, Champa,
and advised her and her children to reject Christ – counsel she
has firmly ignored, the spokesman said.