Evangelical Christianity in the South

 

     

The Persecution in the Provinces

 

      

In Ben Tre Province, the Christians were not only discriminated on grounds of religion but also maltreated because of resistance of repression. The authorities of Tra Vinh forced the Christians to close their worship places. These believers were  denied  authorization to build one even though it met the rules and regulations as required by the law. A worship place was built in Ngu Lac in 2003. Police raids occurred again and again. On January 25, 2007, the pastor Nguyen Van Dien and fellow Christians were beaten  near a bridge at Ngu Lac Commune by a group of about 15 thugs. There was no intervention whatsoever from the authorities. On November 15, the pastor came to Ngu Lac to celebrate and baptize new converts.  Police disrupted the celebration. The local authorities who came to attend a celebration at a Therevada temple nearby ignored this act of religious intolerance. They incited the Buddhists who were in attendance to complicate the situation, instead. They even forced the Christians to stop their celebration and disband themselves.

In Binh Phuoc Province, Christians of the ethnic minority S’tieng have also suffered harsh repression as have the Vietnamese Christians. On April 8, 2005, the security police came and surrounded Thanh Binh Commune, Binh Long District while the Christian congregation and the youths of the S’tieng ethnic minority were performing religious services. The following day, it broke away the assembly of 300 Christians on grounds of illegal assembly, saying that the program of activities had not been registered at police headquarters for permission. Visitors must leave, and only local residents could stay. People from afar had to return to their places of destination. Pastor Tran Mai, on behalf of his congregation, protested against the breaches of the Sate against the right to religious assembly as instituted in the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.His protest came to no answer.

   

Religious practices of Christians iin Binh Duong Province are strictly controlled. Fifty Christian congregations in the province were continually harassed by police raids. Christians of the Mennonite Church at Phuoc My Commune, Ben Cat District, met with difficulty from the local authorities any time they assembled for prayers. During Christmas 2008.the authorities and security police came to the worship place of the Church and stopped the worship celebration.They confiscated the Bibles and religious materials.. Being asked about the reason for such intrusion, the Head of the Religious Affairs Section of Binh Duong Nguyen Khai Hoan said that the authorities in Binh Duong just wanted to offer the Christians some guidance. Theey had not followed legal guidelines. Christians had obligation to register their religious activities at the administration’s office, but they had not. Pastor Nguyen Thanh Nhan, on the contrary, negated the accusation, saying that the Christians had already come to the district and province offices, the Department of the Interior and had applied in vain for the authorization from the authorities. Preaching faith, and an assembly for prayers, which are of primay importance to religious practices, are denied. To the Christians of Mennonite Church preaching the Bible and assembly for prayers are religious performances with which Christians serve their faith.  

The growth of the Church is rapid. The administration attributes to this religious drive as a counterrevolutionary movement. Out of fear, they ought to dissolve it. The Church is ever targeted with suppression. In Binh Duong, at the end of August of 2011, the police forces dissolved any assembly of Christians at the industrial My Phuoc I of which the Reverend Nguyen Thanh Nhan was the pastor in charge. Church services were entirely paralyzed, so were religious activities.

At 11:30 P.M. of June 11, 2014, more than three hundred plainclothes and uniform security agents and civil guards of Ben Cat, B broke down the gate and stormed the chapel of the Mennonite Church. They cut electricity and brutally assaulted 76 Christians who were performing religious practices on charge of illegal assembly, although the Christians had registered a temporary household registration. Pastors, ministers, and even women and children were beaten. Twenty-nine pastors and ministers, and 47 Christians including seminarians and Bible instructors were arrested. The seminarians were beaten while under detention. The pastors, ministers, and 47 Christians were released the following day. The authorities did not give any explanation on the incident. Pastor Nguyen Huu Tinh, who was one among the arrested, declared that the administration in Vietnam no longer “observe moral conduct. They use violence to show power and create fear to intimidate the Christians. Nevertheless, those believers find ourselves more resilient,  firmly serving faith and standing up to struggle for the Truth

Religious Persecution the Modern Era

Evangelical Christianity

      Persecution in the Central Highlands

From 2003 to 2008, the Mennonite Church in Vietnam was under constant persecution. Many members of the Church were placed under surveillance. Hundreds of pastors, ministers, and lay Christians endured humiliation, maltreatment, and imprisonment. Pastor Garan Che, as a case in evidence, was detained for reeducation in Dak Nong for two years. Scores of Christians were incarcerated for unfouded crimes following the demonstrations in 2001. The  authorities said that these Christians  had  cooperated with the FULRO.  Nevertheless, in a contact with the security police on May 20, 2007,  Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh asked them to produce the evidence for the link to and cooperation with the FULRO of the Montagnards in the Central Highlands, they were speechless. They simply said the Christians operated illegal religious activities, caused social disorder and had to be brought to camps for reeducation. The pastor finds the accusation quite absurd. The authorities themselves are the violators of the laws. His fellow Christians are victimized, and they  are oppressed. Their voice is muffled. They commit no violation of the laws. The administration accused them of crimes on false charges. The security police practically commit crimes., They violate the laws but are nevertheless free of charges. The majority of Christians in the Central Highlands are people from the ethnic minorities. They adore their faith. They commit no crime. Only services and practices of faith flourish. They believed that their Church is legitimately independent, and thus seeks no compromise with the authorities. That is the reason for which the authorities fabricate such crimes as link to or cooperation with FULRO and DEGA. They use these charges as a pretext to repress the Evangelical Christian Churches in the Central Highlands. This also serves as a pretext under which they apply pressure .on the Evangelical Mennonite Church, stopping the House Church movement, in particular. The Church and the ethnic minority communities had no involvement in the FULRO activities, If there had been any involvement, it would have occurred in the past, from 1997 to 2002. This movement had already come to a close and FULRO no longer existed. 

The ever-increasing growth of Evangelical Christianity has always caused the authorities acute frustration. Mass conversions has created a serious problem to the regime. The authorities stepped up repression on the Montagnards. In 2010, more than 70 Christians were detained or arrested, and 250 Christians were imprisoned, according to Human Rights Watch (2011). Police actuated raids to dissolve house church gatherings, executed sessions of renunciations of faith, and sealed the border to stop waves of asylum seekers from evading the country. About 1,700 Montagnards fled to Cambodia after continual troops repression against land dispossession protests and demonstrations for religious freedom in 2001 and 2005. In February 2011, a group of asylum seekers reportedly faced repatriation after the Cambodian government closed a center for refugees operated by the U.N. agency in Phnom Penh. Montagnards adhered to underground House Church outside the control of the State were viewed as "Dega members." Targeted with suppression, they were detained for questioning, interrogation, and arrest. The treatment was inhuman. Security authorities even used electric rods during interrogation. To stop the house church movement, the authorities sought to strike the Church at the head. Prominent pastors and leaders were the primary target for elimination.

In the Heat of Persecution

      Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh

The struggle of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands for the rights.to ownership of land, houses and properties, and worship places rose as persecution intensified in almost all Christian communities in the Central Highlands. Pastor Nguyen Thanh Long alias Nguyen Cong Chinh of the Mennonite Church was suspected of instigating the movement. In this regard, he established relationship with the Montagnards in the United States and worked in cahoots with the counter-revolutionary organizations operating overseas such as the Association of Special Forces of the old Republic of Vietnam. The relationship, in fact, results from benevolence. The pastor only helped veteran soldiers of the Special Forces to leave the country on the Orderly Departure Programs projected and agreed on by both the United States of America and Communist Vietnam. He helped people that are trapped by misfortune and needed counsel. Likewise, he helped the Montagnards living in Vietnam only for humanitarian purpose. He never worked in cahoots with anyone to counteract a “revolution” or to fight anyone. He nevertheless maltreated violence, arrest and torture His wife and children were isolated from the society. Just like fish in a pot and birds in a cage. he wished to speak out the voice of a man of conscience, and of  the oppressed whose rights man are violated. 

Since August 3, 2006 he had not ben allowed to contact with other pastors and ministers, and members of Christian congregations due to poor communication and strict police control. Under strict surveillance, he ventured to travel to islated community to visit the Christians there. One time, he got lost in the forest,  surrounded amid a forest of rubber-trees and evoers. It was not until 3 o’clock in the morning of the following day could he manage to run away from danger.

On April 8, 2011, the organ of security of Gia Lai decided to prosecute Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh. On April 28, he was convicted on unfounded charges of destroying tthe policy of great union, referring to Article 87 of the Criminal Code. The organ of investigation maintained that from 2004 Nguyen Cong Chinh had compiled and sent abroad writings that the administration of Vietnam viewed as anti-revolutionary. He had equally had interviews with foreign mass media by means of which he distorted the situation in Vietnam and calumniated the administration and the military forces as well. On March 26, 2012, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh was brought to stand trial before the People’s Court of Gia Lai. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “causing division among the people and sowing hatred and division among various ethnic minorities, between the believers and non-believers, and between the believers and the administration, thus breaching national sovereignty and destroying the international policy of solidarity of Vietnam.” The pastor negated all crimes attributed to him. He declared that, a dignitary of a religion, he only addresses things benefitting people out of benevolence. He commits no crimes. He is stripped off the rights to movement, and thus he has to struggle for it. The pstor had the right to appeal within 15 days. In July, the Appeals Court of Gia Lai upheld the sentence of the lower court after a half-day hearing.

In the prison, the pastor was the target of mistreatment due to complaints about prison conditions. In a letter to the Head of State Truong Tan Sang and Public Security Minister Tran Dai Quang in May 2014, fourteen leaders representing Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Caodaism, and Hoa Hao Buddhism called for an investigation on abuses against the Mennonite pastor and other prisoners of conscience. The letter pointed out, among other things, instances of corruption, cuts in food rations, and asking for bribes from prisoners in exchange for better conditions in the prison. In their letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the religious leaders specifically denounced “terrorist acts against prisoners of conscience.” The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam recognizes the rights to freedom of belief and religion, but religious services and activities are strictly regulated by laws, decrees, and decisions.

The pastor’s wife Tran Thi Hong and their five children became the target of enmity. Mrs.Tran was trailed wherever she went. Her neighbors dared not see her for fear of being a party involving in her husband’s “crimes.” On September 24, 2013, as she planned to visit her husband in jail, security police sealed the gate with wire to prevent her and her children from leaving house, even to get medicine for her sick child. She did not know how long she and her children would live under this condition. They were like prisoners in their own house. “They have mistreated our family for so many years. They continue to do so, and I don’t know what they will do to our family,” she said.

While her husband suffered maltreatment in the prison, Tran Thi Hongg was subject to harsher harassment. She was continually targeted with violence and trailed wherever she went. On April 14, 2016 following the meeting with the members of the U.S. delegation, she suffered injuries from beatings  befalling her and missed the opportunity to meet the delegation. Police stopped her from going to the meeting place and escorted her back home. She was then interrogated about the meeting by various organs of the local administration.  Refuting unfounded charges against her, she maintained that she commits no violation of the laws, and the authorities’ conduct of affairs is undeniably rude. She denounced police’ acts of atrocity. She and one of her children were harassed and robbed of their personal belongings while they on their way to meet with the U.S. delegation. Having beaten her, policr deposed her ouside her home. The victim exclaimed in grief that she had been deprived of her human rights, that she had been beaten and humiliated so many times, and that she had no longer energy to work. She demanded innediate end to this repression.    

   Painful Deaths

Y-Kuoi, a native of Dha Prong Commune, Dak Lak Province, was arrested on May 13, 2003 and died in the prison on December 5, 2004. His family said that he died as a result of beating and torture. The security police warned against his family with threat if they ever disclosed the cause of his death they would suffer the same fate. On June 10, 2007, the Montagnards Foundation in the United States informed that two Christians were killed by the security police. The victim, Dieu Suoi, died on May 21, 2007, only two days after his release from prison. Dieu Suoi was arrested and incarcerated in the prison of Dak Nong on September 14, 2005 on charges of not having joined the State-affiliated Church, and participated in the activities of the house church denomination. According to his relatives, he could not endure torture during imprisonment.

      Eviction from the Refugee Camp

For fear of being arrested and expelled from U.N. refugee camp in Phnom Penh, Kampuchea, many refugees deserted the camp. A number of them were arrested and escorted back to Vietnam. Pastor A Dong and his family members of the Mennonite Church of Vietnam were the four people among them.  He came to the camp on June 12, 2007. During his stay at the camp, he found lack of protection, the pastor decided to leave the camp. The authorities of the Ministry for the Interior of Kampuchea arrested and escorted him and his family members back to Vietnam.      

   

Pastor A Dong is a native of Sa Binh Commune, Sa Thay District, Kontum Province, He had been the general administrator of the Mennonite Church at Sa Thay. In September 2006, having attended a course in ministry in Phnom Penh, he came back to Vietnam. The security police at Sa Thay arrested and detained him for 10 days. He had to pay a fine of $VN 500,000 dong. He was placed under house surveillance for 5 years. He was forbidden to perform ministerial services or participate in religious activities in any Churches in the Central Highlands. He had to report his daily activities at the security police headquarters of Sa Thay weekly. In August 2007, he and his family evaded to Kampuchea.

     

Escorted back to Vietnam, he was detained in Saigon for 10 days. He was then brought back to Sa Thay. On June 11, 2008, he was brought to stand a a crime relevation meeting at Sa Thay District where the representatives of the press and masses organizations of the district and province were in attendance. The crime revelation focused on finding out the motives of his evasion to Kampuchea. The reason for which he decided to evade is simple.  He was forbidden to perform his ministerial duty and to meet with his fellow Christians.  He was thus deprived of the rights to freedom as man.

Constant repression continued all through the following the period of renovation. Pastor Aga of Daklak lamented over the difficulties facing the Christians. Many followers were prevented from serving faith, arrested, and detained before Christmas Eve (2012) when they were about to prepare religious services in Kontum. At Pon Hamlet, Ya - Pe Commune, Maddrak District in Dak Lak Province, Pastor Y Noen and the minister Y Jon  were convoked "to work with" the  security sevice P88 of Maddrak District. Pastor Y Noen was admonished to abandon his faith as the Church he was serving had not  been sanctioned by the State. The Church, in reality, had been active for some seven years and had not done anything wrong. Out of suspiscion, the authorities found fault with the Church, adding that it had links with the FULRO and seeking means to eliminate it. "The Church is a purely religious organization, we only serve our faith," the pastor contended.

Repression has forced the Montagnards to evade their homeland and seek refuge in the northwestern neighboring Kampuchea's Ratannakiri. Fearful of being caught and repatriated by local Kampuchean authorities, the victims survived in hiding in the jungle, staying on food from a group of  Jarai, one of the tribes that make up the Montagnards in either side of the Vietnam - Kampuchea borders. In December 2014, a U.N. team of refugee and human rights officials was blocked by Kampuchea authorities in Ratannakiri from searching for group of 13 Montagnards who were hanging about in the jungle where they hid for more than seven weeks.

In May 2013, the Gia Lai People’s Court sentenced eight ethnic minority Montagnards to between three to eleven years in prison on charges of  “undermining security.” Some of them were accused of having worked with an outlawed organization overseas to establish an autonomous region for the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands. All eight accused were convicted under Article 87 of the Penal Code, which provision characterizes the crime of “undermining national unity by sowing division,” or practicing “ethnic or religious hatred.” 

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).