Unrest

Unrest intensified following massive demonstrations in the Central Highlands in February 2001, Leaders of the Evangelical Christiani Churches of (South) Vietnam officially announced the Church legal statute operating under the direction of the Party. In a circular, they blamed the Christians of Dak Lak for involvement in agitation incited by the movement Dega. On the other hand, the authorities, taking advantage of the consequences caused by the unrest, sought to separate local Evangelical Christian from alleged Deaga remnants and stopped religious services and activities of other long-time independent Evangelical groups.

Members of domestic Churches, to whom the State attributed as “illegal Evangelicals” were unjustly charged with unfounded crimes. Many leaders were repeatedly convoked to police stations for interrogation. In most cases, these “work sessions” ended in physical abuses.  Hundreds of houses of worship of Evangelical groups were closed down, and many congregations were dissolved. Four hundred churches of the ethnic minority Ede at Dak Lak many of which had functioned for many years, were dissolved in Fall 2002 out of suspicion of subversive activities: Many Christians were suspected of involving in political actions. A number of leaders were arrested. Religious chiefs among them were tried and given sentences. Others simprly "disappeared," Still, others sought hiding somewhere to avoid police fatal extra-judiciary treatment. Oftentimes, leaders and chiefs were summoned to pledge before the authorities not to assemble the believers for preaching, saying prayers, or performing religious services. Marriages and funerals in the Christian rites were forbidden.

Anti-Christian Campaigns-- Conversion to Animism

Anti-Christian campaigns aiming at stopping the H'mong and Montagnards from practicing and performing religious services. Christians were forced to abandon faith. Interdiction program  included mandatory attendance at anti-Christian propaganda sessions followed by performance of “ancient” rites. The participants were subdued to obligation of drinking of a repugnant mixture of animal blood and rice wine. This performance attested they publicly professed abandonment of Evangelical Christianity and conversion to traditional beliefs --animism. Campaigns of this type were followed by police raids and house search operations to inspect house after house to find Bibles and other religious publications.

   

The Persecution

Beginning in the early months of 2004, persecution against the Montagnard Christians was voluminously executed with beatings, instances of forced renunciation of faith, and arrests.  Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh of the Mennonite Church in Gia Lai Province informed that the authorities had razed his chapel and private residence to the ground. His wife who was bearing a child was beaten. The pastor and his family had to find shelter in another place. They were not free from persecution from then on, however.

    

On July 25, 2005, the religious associates of Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh were convoked to the security police office. They were forced to pledge in to break relations with their pastor. On August 14, the pastor and 5 other fellow pastors were arrested while they were praying in communion in an assembly to share Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ. The security police adduced from false charge according to which the assembly was in practice a gambling party. They then had the obligation to disband it.   On November 11, the security organ came and expelled Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh and and his  family from their new home. During the first months of 2006, he was constantly trailed by secret security police agents. of Binh Khanh Ward. He was finally arrested. Bibles, and religious materials published by State-owned printing house and officially used by the Christian Churches throughout the country the pastor received from the Christian congregations in Saigon were confiscated.

Repression against Evangelical Christianity in Gia Lai Province was increasingly serious. Montagnard Christians had either to join the State-sanctioned Churches or leave their communes. In the early days of November 2005, many missionaries and pastors of the Mennonite Church of Chu A Commune were convoked “to work with” the province’s People Council. They were warned with threats for unknown motives. Y Rang and Y Djik  were  beaten.  Christians in the neighboring provinces suffered the sme fate. On November 7, Lt. Colonel Chan, the director of Pleiku township’s security Police, brought the missionaries Y-Kor, Y-Kat, Y-Rang, and Y-Djik to stand trial before a people’s assembly for crime revelation at Chu A Village. They were given an unspecified probation and released after that.  On February 7, 2005, officials of the People, s Council and security police of Gan Reo Commune, Duc Trong District, Lam Dong Province, broke away an assembly of the Christians of the Baptist Church that had officially operated in the country before the Communist takeover of South Vietnam. The action took place only one day after the issuance of the recommendations from the central administration according to which  the authorities at all levels had the obligation to help create favorable conditions for followers to practice their  religious services. 

   

On Easter Day (April 2005), the public security of Lam Dong Province aborted the religious celebration of the Montagnard Christian congregation led by Pastor Duong Thanh Lam that had officially operated before 1975.  Smoldering resentment ever resisted and brooded far into the modern era. Unrest spread, and arrests increased in number. During November 2005 - January 2006, a group of Momtagrads from Pleiku had to evade to and sought hiding in the forest in the province of Rattanakin, Kampuchea. Religious persecution was on the rise, although the government maintained that it had carried out policies “to erase hunger and reduce poverty” and to support the Montagards in both the economic and religious life, Security police still beat, tortured, and terrorized Montagard Christians. In pracytce, about 200 Christians were arrested due to their refusal to join one of the State-affiliated Christian Churches or demands for land for cultivation. They were forced to renounce their faith, but vowed to faithfully practice their religipos creed. They maintained that the authorities kept on repressing them out of fear for a popular uprising. Their demands nevertheless had nothing to do with unrest and demonstrations that took place in the Central Highlands in 2001 and 2004.  

Harassment persisted. The missionary Nguyen Ngoc Giao, on March 23, 2006, inforand  that the chairman of the People’s Council of Thanh My Township, Lam Dong Province Le Quang Hung  convoked him to “work” at his office for unspecified reasons. The missionary was then compelled to sign in a record of evidence admitting his guilt for having held assembly of religious activities without permission. Refuting the authorities’ argument, the missionary insisted that he had applied for authorization and registered with the local authorities and that the Church had performed religious activities for a long time. Discrimination prevailed. The State favored one Church but discriminates against another. Right in Lam Dong Province, one Christian Church was allowed to perform open religious activities while many others were not. There was no consistency in the State religious policy. The missionary and the Christians of his congregation vowed to continue to perform religious services and serve their faith no matter what would happen to him and the congregation.

Persecution befell the prominent leader of the Mennonite Church. At 8 P. M. on September 8, 2004, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh was arbitrarily placed under police surveillance by order of the security police of Pleiku. The police confiscated his tape recorder on which he had recorded his interrogation by the security police of Pleiku. A mobile police checkpoint was posited in front of his house. Plainclothes police agents were on watch. All his connections to the outside, including conversations on telephone, were intercepted. The pastor was trailed wherever he went. He was lastly convoked to the security police for interrogation, The pastor was insulted and beaten behind closed doors. Other pastors and ministers were also convoked to “work with” the security police. They were also beaten. Among them were the ministers Y-Yan and Y-Dick, and Pastor Y-Kor. 

At 9:00: A.M. of March 8, 2007, a band of thugs broke into the residence of Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh and forced him to go “to work” with the authorities. Nguyen Thi Hong, the pastor’s wife, related that a large group of men clad like thugs stormed her house. Furious at her resistance, the band dragged the housewife out of the house and beat her brutally. She had to ask her neighbor to take care in her place of her children who the thugs chased out of the house. She could identify three men who had been seen on watch in front of her house and who had dragged her out of her house. They had many times caused  her trouble and injured her husband.  

        

At 9:00 P.M. of the same day, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh was released. The authorities told him he had to go” to work” with them again, if not, they would go with guns to his house to shoot him and destroy his house aright.  The pastor answered that he would rather die than to be forbidden to preach his faith.  He wished he could take care of his family. He asked his relatives to help his family and his fellow Christians of the Mennonite Church in the Central Highlands.

Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh denounced that the State repeatedly caused him trouble. Security police warned him with threat, to imprison him  if he continued to contact with international media. All through May 14-23, 2007, they continually convoked him “to work” with them and forced him to guarantee not to give interview to foreign news agencies, particularly the RFA. If he continued to do so, he would be arrested. To this, the pastor replied that this was his rights to do this. He was not forbidden by the law. First, as a Vietnamese citizen, he has the right to do things that the law does not forbid. Second, he has the right to give an interview by means of which he could present instances of oppression he himself has experienced. He has to express the voice of conscience. And, he has chance to speak out his viewpoints. If they forbid him to do this, they should present themselves theirs in the light of the law in public. Until then could he comply with their order, The right to expression is recognized by the Constitution of Vietnam and the International Covenants for rights of Man. What he has acted is entirely in conformity with the Constitution of Vietnam and the International Covenants. No matter what the civil authorities will do, whether by threat, arrest and imprisonment or  whatever method they would use, he would ever voice his opinions, as he had ever acted in this way for the past 20 years. He had nothing but this right. He had been stripped off his rights of citizen, of his household registration certificate, and identification card.. He is a Vietnamese but is not treated as one. His family was living in Peiku without a household registration certificate. The security police did not grant him a temporary residence permit. He had come to register with it but had been denied to get one. Both the township and province security police did not want him to live in Pleiku. He had contacts with U.S. Mennonite and North America Mennonite, but the Churches there could only act within their competence to assist him.

The pastor could not perform his pastoral duty. The authorities do not recognize him as pastor, although he has his nomination confirmed and certified by International Mennonite. They confiscated these papers all.  They also seized his birth certificate, cell phone, camera, and motorcycle. All his belongings, including Bibles, were confiscated. His house, which is worth of 100 million $VN dong (approximately 550 US dollars), was dispossessed. He suffered frequent harassment and detention for interrogation. He was questioned about how he could afford to buy it and what organization had given him financial support. He replied that his house was only worth of 100 million $VN dong, and there was no need for financial support. He wondered why they do not conduct  investigation on how State rank-and-file officials and cadres could possess properties that are worth of billions of $VN dong. He wa  isolated from the community, and he was always in hard times to survive. He asked all religious communities, especially the Christian community, for support. He called on the world to pray for him and his Church (RFA March 28, 2007).