Instances of Persecution
Hue
Phu Anh, aged 40, was
arrested in early August 1991 in Hue, allegedly on charges of distributing
contraband Bibles and other religious literature. He is said to have been held
in administrative detention in Da Nang and was reportedly released on November
20. He is still thought to be under police investigation.
Da Nang
The lack of scriptures
constituted a serious problem to the preaching of the faith. Tied to
restrictions. Pastors Le Tanh and Cao Van Quy
and a number Evangelical members of the congregations under their
leadership had to compromise with the authorities in exchange for permission to
start a Bible training class.
Persecution nevertheless intensified. In February 1994, the security
forces of Da Nang, broke up an unregistered Church meeting and arrested 30
church members. Following the raid, at least five church leaders were arrested
and detained in a police lockup for four days and given a fine of an equivalent
$ US 25 each before they were released.
Quang Ngai
On November 20, 1994, the
authorities at Ba To, Quang Ngai Province arrested Pastor Nguyen Duc Loi and
Pastor Nguyen Van Vui, the leaders of the House Church movement. They were
accused of having pursued political schemes and exploited religious activities.
They were detained for seven months. In March 1995, two militant Christians of
the Same-affiliated Church organization in the district of Son Ha were arrested
for unspecified reasons. They were only released after several weeks of
detention.
These arrests of Church
members apparently resulted from the rapid growth of Christianity in the local
ethic minority Hre. The Reverend Loi, who speaks proficiently the Hre language,
played a role in the Bible propagation in the area, was among the arrested.
After his arrest, the House Church
movement of the Hre cane to a standstill. However, the Christians continued to
participate in religious celebrations at private houses, regardless of all
interdictions. They only performed religious services in accordance with the
law as prescribed by Article 7 of the Decree 69/HDBT of March 21, 1991.
According to this article, "the faithful have the right to practice the
rites of offerings and the right to recite prayers in the interior of the
family." They would only participate "in religious activities which
are performed in the interior of a worship place."
An inquest of 6 pages edited
in Central Vietnam and signed by 17 members of a domestic Church belonging to
the Assembly of God reported in detail the barbarous treatment that the police
inflicted on them on September 19, 1999.
The incident occurred in the commune of Binh Linh, district of Que Chau,
province of Quang Ngai. The Church
members were taken with hands tied to
the to the commune headquarters for interrogation subsequent to a peaceful
meeting for prayers at the house of Sac and Day. Along the road they were
mocked at with rude things. They were brutally beaten during the
interrogations. In an instance, the security police behaved just like the crazy crooks of the Red Guards
of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. While dragging the poor Christians along
the road, they held high the Bible and shouted: "The same things will
occur to whoever believes in this sordid book." Among the victims was Huynh
Van Bay, who suffered torture during intermittent interrogations by the agents
of the police Nguyen Nghia and Tran Phuoc Thiep. To force the Christian from
renouncing his faith, the two agents beat, boxed, and kicked him until he
fainted. When released, Bay succumbed to serious illness.
The petition to the central
administration stressed that the Christians concerned are poor peasants who
aspire to take care of their families, serve their faith, and build the
country. These Christians ask themselves whether the kind of ill-treatment they
suffered is part of the policy of the State, and, if that is true, such an act
is executed in contradiction to he declaration of the Secretary-general of the
Party, Le Kha Phieu when he affirmed that religious freedom is guaranteed to
every citizen. The Christians, in reality, could only receive ill-treatment that are brutal from the agents of the public security
of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The most deplorable case in evidence is
that of the Hre missionary, Dinh Van Hoang and his pregnant spouse. Both of
them were beaten in July 1999. Following the ill-treatment, the spouse of the
missionary lost her child. The husband and wife even continued to perform their
mission of propagation of the faith, Because of this, their house was
mysteriously burnt. Everyone knew who the arsonist was but dared not say.
Testimony
There existed in the
beginning of 1999 hundreds of domestic Churches in the Hre population in Quang
Ngai. It was then an impetus to a powerful movement of faith in the region.
Notwithstanding, because of this expansion of house church, many Christians
were targeted with ill-treatment of the security police. In August 1999, a
member of group of domestic Church, called "Friendly Christians"
demanded in a petition to the administration of Quang Ngai Province respect for
religious freedom and decent conduct towards the Christians, as follows:
“ My name is Nguyen Huu Cau. I belong to the
group of the ethnic Hre. I am 43 years
old, and I am from the hamlet of Ca Dao, commune of Son Dang, district of Son
Ha in the province of Quang Ngai. I desire to testify the accomplished work by
the Lord in the commune of Son Lang in the entire district of Son Ha where
there is not any Christian church while the Christians are numerous. In the
commune of Son Lang only, the are 150. Christians. On June 28, 1999, our
congregation at Son Long organized a Summer class of Bible for the children in
my house. The first day, the children received with joy the Word of God and
practiced holy chants, and sang holy songs. Nevertheless, the next day, at
14:30, the agents of local security police interrupted our activities. They
dismissed the class and ordered me to go to the district security police office
for an interrogation. t
Politely and confidently, I
talked to them about the religious policy of the State and freedom of religion,
but to all intents they oppressed me. I was indignant at their behavior and
manner as they penetrated my house without a written order from their superior.
I asked them to set me free because of
this. I reasoned that had resisted the order of Captain Lien, who wore the
uniform of patrol police, for illegal intrusion into my house. I said:
"Nobody in my family has violated the traffic or transportation
regulations. Your order of arrest is not a warrant." They admitted that
all the facts I said was reasonable. They had searched the garden where the
children had been attending a session of Bible reading. They had been singing
with joy. Having offered no counter-argument, the policemen were very angry.
They communicated by radio with other policemen working outside, asking them to
come the place office to intimidate me and executed barbarous acts against me.
They said that I was under arrest and intended to tie my hands. I expressed my
reprobation of all of that. I held a glass in my hand and held it firm. They
dared not come near. But, in a moment, they threw a grenade of gas on me, bound
my hands, and took me away.
They also arrested my
friends Dao and Trung, my brothers in the service for the Lord who came to help
me with Bible readings to children. They threw us into a cell in a police
station of the district of Son Ha, a cell in which we can only eat and relieve
ourselves. They refused to give us a mosquito net or anything to keep off the
mosquito. They gave us a bowl of rice with coarse salt, twice a day. The first
day, we did not have water. Then, they furnished us with a small bottle of
water daily. In spite of this ill-treatment, all three of us continued to pray
the Lord in a loud voice to encourage ourselves. We recited Biblical texts that we knew by heart in this
manner. We did this any time we were not
interrogated.
The night of July 5, 1999 , at about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, three of us
woke up and prayed in such a loud voice that the guards could not sleep. I
recited the psalms and concluded my prayer by these words: "In the name of
Jesus Christ, evil disappears!" They came to strike violently on the door
and injured me. They said to me: "You recited your prayers day and night.
Do you want to make the prison a place of cult?" On this point, they were
right. From my cell, through canalization, I talked to a prisoner of the next
cell, Nguyen Ngoc Thang, aged 23. I made a testimony and awakened him to faith.
I taught him to sing Christian songs and he learned by heart a passage of
Gospel: Jean 3,16. Thang was in prison because of a crime and waited to be
brought before the tribunal.
On July 7, 1999, I only
imagined that I was going to be liberated because 9 days had already passed by
since my arrest, which term of temporary detention set forth by the local authorities, and I
thought that I could write a verse from the Bible on the wall to leave a
testimony. I was immediately punished, a terrible punishment. They put me in
a terrible foul cell, I did not imagine that
I could bear such a pain. When I came back home, I thought that they had
thrown me into the inferno. I thank God that that excruciating pain only lasted
five hours, and that was a nightmare that would ever haunt me all my life.
After these nine days, they
set three of us free. We came back home. exhausted. As for me, during the
following week, I was to report myself at the police headquarters for interrogations
for the agents there to complete an on-file document on my personal history.
They condemned me in a meeting of denunciation of crimes before a group of
retired policemen and other people who took side with the ‘Revolution.’ These
people shouted at me and threatened me. Some said to me: ‘We must use the law
of the jungle against you and reprove you severely so that you will stop
behaving stupidly like a dog.’ The chairman of the People’s Council of the commune of Son Lang concluded with
warnings against ‘whoever would come to talk to me.’
Then, they imposed on me a
fine on three amends:
1- 200,000 to one million
‘dong for having abused democratic privileges of the citizen by violating
national security,
2- 200,000 to one million
‘dong’ for having counteracted an agent of the law while in the exercise of his
functions. and
3- 200,000 to one million
‘dong’ for having degraded a building belonging to the nation."
My photo camera “Pratica”
and my flash “Sun Pak” were confiscated and would only be returned to me until
I completely acquitted myself of the
amends.
I asked my Christian friends
to pray the Lord in my favor to intervene in this instance. My family is really
in very great misery: my religious life was in jeopardy. The faith that just flourishes in me and the photos I have taken kept with me
until now are all resources with which I can invest in the service of God.
As regards my health
condition, I suffer chronic loss of memory.
From the start of my incarceration, I have contracted a certain number
of illnesses. I have salt in blood because due to ill nourishment. As my family
is aware of my illness, they have tried to support me, giving me what I
need. The camp authorities did not facilitate things. From time to time, my children take risk to
enter the courtyard of the prison to bring me a little supply of food. But, the
guards confiscate it all.
The testimony by a Christian
in Quy Nhon showed how deplorable the
Christians suffered under persecution:
“I hereby respectfully
addressed to the congregation of servants of the Lord. In June 1999, my Church
at Qui Nhon (we belong to the Vietnamese
congregation of the district of Qui Nhon, province of Gia Lai) convened an assembly destined to impart methods of
religious instruction to new preachers. The police of the Security interrupted
the assembly, seized the Bibles, religious books, copies of songs, .... dressed
a report, and insisted that we all be brought to trial before the People's Council. After many days under interrogation, we were
imposed on a fine for amends of 400,000 “dong’”
In the commune of Suoi Bac, district of Son Hoa in the province
of Tuy Hoa, the police addressed to the Christians of the Hroi ethnic:
"You are not authorized to pray together in your family. If you want to
practice a cult, you must go to a church." Ethnic Christians in Phu Yen
suffered the same fate. Persecution intensified.
The Hroi and Ede ethnic minorities in the two districts of Son Hoa and
Son Hinh in the province of Phu Yen. suffered harassment and intimidation. The
missionaries were beaten, humiliated, calumniated, and offended. The civil
servants of the government of these two districts got the masses together at
regular intervals to propagandize, speaking ill of the movement and growth of
the Evangelical Christian Churches. By propaganda, they vilified the Church:
"Protestantism is an American religion, the religion of the
counterrevolutionary, the religion that seeks all means to overthrow the
government. Whoever sows this religion
will be arrested, and thrown into prison and will have to suffer the rigor of
the law."
Thuan Hai
The Reverend Xuan reportedly
refused to sign a false confession and was held 347 in administrative detention
in a security prison in Thuan Hai Province, without being allowed to receive
family visits for four months, until April 1990. He is reported not to have
been formally tried or convicted and was released in December 1991. According
to the sources, Rev. Xuan had previously spent 13 years in a reeducation camp
until April 1987 because he used to be a military chaplain in the South
Vietnamese army.
Phan Rang
In the Vietnamese Christian
communities in the provinces of Thuan Hai and Song Be, arrests took place,
usually after assembly celebrations at domicile. The two Christian leaders, Son
and Minh, of the Christendom of Thanh My, which is near Phan Rang Province,
were arrested in April 1990 for having organized an assembly for prayers at a
private house. During December, 1990, three pastors were arrested for the same
reason: The Reverend Vo Xuan in the region of Binh Thuy where three temples
were temporarily closed.
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