Christians tortured, martyred in Vietnam
Pastor Dale Morgan
Christians tortured, martyred in Vietnam*
2 more deaths in crackdown on house church movement
Posted: June 9, 2007
Assist News Service
Two more members of a mostly-Christian population in the Central
Highlands of Vietnam have died at the hands of authorities, according to
a U.S.-based foundation whose leaders recently issued a plea to
President Bush to ask Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet about such
tragedies when the two meet later this month.
The death toll from the communist government's persecution of Christians
there actually is rising by three, but one of the deaths happened some
time ago, only to be reported recently. The two other deaths have
happened just in recent weeks, according to officials with the the
Montagnard Foundation.
It was reported, that the group just days ago sent an open letter to
Bush asking him to pressure the president of Vietnam to stop the
"persecution, torture, killings and imprisonment" of the Degar
Montagnards, a group of people who sided with the U.S. during the
Vietnam war and have been persecuted since.
The foundation said an estimated 350 Degar Montagnards are imprisoned
for standing up for human rights, spreading Christianity, or fleeing to
Cambodia. "These prisoners are subjected to torture, including electric
shock treatment, and withheld food and medical care," the foundation said.
Its new report documented the death on May 29, 2007, of Dieu Suoi, a
Christian who was tortured by police and prison officials. He was
arrested in 2005 "because he was a house church Christian who refused to
join the official church," the foundation said. He was beaten with
batons and shocked, then imprisoned.
Dieu Suoi
His health deteriorated in prison, and on May 27, police returned him to
his family, who insisted he be hospitalized because he had been beaten
so badly they hardly recognized him. Suoi, 30, died in two days, the
report said.
Another death happened just a few weeks earlier, when Sui H'Krong, 55, a
Christian woman, died at her home after she was released from a hospital
after surgery.
She had gone to a doctor in March because of stomach pains, but was
referred immediately to a hospital where she was taken directly in to
surgery.
Sui H'Krong
"After the surgical operation was done, Dr. La Van Thang told her he
could not find anything wrong," the report said. She was sent home,
where her health quickly failed and she died.
"Her family fears that she was experimented on and did not receive
proper medical care," the foundation report said.
The third report that just came in involved Y-Kuot Enuol, 41, who was
arrested in 2001 and subjected to torture for several years in prison.
After his death in late 2004, "security police threatened his family not
to tell anyone about what had happened … or they too will also be
tortured and killed by the police," the foundation report said.
The open letter to Bush had been written by Kok Ksor, the president of
the foundation, and describes how the attacks began as soon as the
communists took over South Vietnam after the U.S. military pullout.
"One of those victims was my uncle, a civilian congressman for the
Montagnards who was publicly executed in 1975," Ksor wrote. "Ever since
the Vietnamese government has continued land exploitation, Christian
persecution, torture, killings and imprisonment of our people. Religious
persecution continues today as authorities torture house church
Christians who resist joining the 'official' church."
"Mr. President, We ask that you: Strongly urge Vietnam to release all of
the estimated 350 Montagnard Degar Prisoners from Vietnamese prisons…,"
the letter said, citing a Human Rights Watch report documenting those cases.
The letter also is asking the U.S. to consider restoring Vietnam to the
list of nations cited as "Countries of Particular Concern," for its
persecution of religious and minority groups. And it also would like the
State Department to include the Montagnard Foundation as relations
between the U.S. and Vietnam develop.
"We are not asking the United States to abandon relations with Vietnam
and we do not want progress between the United States and Vietnam to be
stifled. We know the world of politics is complex but we cry out in
desperation to you," the letter said. "Inside the Central Highlands our
people desperately await to hear some news that an American president
has remembered them."
"As you may know the Montagnard Degar people were allies to the United
States during the Vietnam War and U.S. veterans came to know our people
like brothers," Ksor said. "In fact, during the Vietnam War our people
were considered one of America's most loyal allies and it is estimated
that at any one time over 40,000 Montagnards served alongside their
American comrades. Throughout the … war it is estimated 100,000
Montagnards served with the U.S. military and by the end of the war,
over a quarter of our population, over 200,000 people, had died
including half of all adult males," he wrote. The communists, on taking
over, he said, "enacted revenge," and it continues.
Leaving the situation as it is would mean "surveillance, arrests,
beatings, electric shock torture, imprisonment and murdering," he said.
The foundation also announced plans for a peaceful demonstration on June
16 outside the White House, "calling for an end to persecution of their
people by the Vietnamese communist government," which will be followed
by a prayer vigil at the Vietnam Wall Memorial.
In a recent report from Michael Ireland, of ASSIST News, he documented
the ongoing harassment.
Citing Human Rights Watch documentation, he said Vietnam is targeting
"those perceived as following 'Dega Christianity,' an unsanctioned form
of evangelical Christianity."
HRW said the government has ordered a ban, calling it a political
movement, not a religion. The organization said police in recent weeks
have conducted midnight raids on villages, ransacking homes and have
beaten women and children.
The abuse also has been documented by Freedom House's Center for
Religious Freedom.