Vietnam closes 350-plus churches; leaders jailed

Information has been pouring out of Vietnam about a recent wave of government repression against Montagnard evangelicals in Vietnam's Central Highlands, Compass Direct news service reported Nov. 13.

Documents acquired in October by religious and human rights workers in this Southeast Asian country and correspondence received in recent days confirm that by the end of September, 354 of 412 churches had been forcibly disbanded in Dak Lak province alone. By mid-October, about 50 Christian pastors and elders in the province had been arrested or had "disappeared."

It is expected that the remaining 58 churches in the province will soon be closed.

Montagnard churches - "Montagnard" means "mountain people" and is a collective name for Vietnam's many minority tribal groups inhabiting the Central Highlands - were historically part of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South). Last year, 26 years after the country was reunified under communism, the ECVN(S) was granted legal recognition. However, only a handful of the many hundreds of Montagnard churches were allowed to identify with the ECVN(S).

On Nov. 7, meanwhile, Freedom House released news of ongoing persecution of Hmong Christians in Vietnam's northwest provinces, including the story and photo of a 36-year-old Hmong Christian man who died from beatings by police and officials because he was a believer. Also, Vietnam's normally cautious Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops recently released a letter decrying the persecution of Catholic Montagnards.

Compass Direct reported church leaders were specifically prohibited from any further religious activity outside their own homes with their own families. All communal activities of the churches - worship, teaching, prayer for the sick, observing holy days, administering sacraments, performing baptisms, weddings and funerals - were forbidden. Leaders were forced to sign statements of compliance.

However, this latest move against churches in Dak Lak is the most severe persecution since 1975, when churches were closed and church leaders put in re-education camps for years, the news service noted.

Earlier complaints addressed to local authorities by the legally recognized provincial committee of the ECVN(S) resulted in increased pressure and persecution, Compass Direct reported. Authorities seized church leaders at will and took them to unknown destinations. They confiscated church furniture, Christian books, Bibles and musical instruments, and then sealed off or took over the simple chapels where Christians met. Officials have entered chapels while Christians were worshiping and harangued Christians to give up their faith.

Local Dak Lak television is reported by many to have broadcast "Ceremonies of Voluntarily Renouncing Christianity" and has shown pictures of Christians "voluntarily" giving their Bibles and songbooks to be burned.

"All the Christians I met greeted me with tears, asked me to pray with them and then hurried me on my way lest something untoward happen to me," said a recent visitor to the area. "Even some sympathetic government officials received me with tears, recognizing the overwhelming sadness of what is happening.

"Many of the churches in Vietnam are praying night and day for this 'national tragedy.' Please pass this sad news to churches overseas as well so that they may participate in earnest prayer, beseeching the Lord to deliver us from this distress. There are many other heart-rending stories which I cannot tell you now."

The United States Commission on International Religion Freedom in September recommended that the U.S. State Department name Vietnam as a "country of particular concern" - the worst category for abusers of religious freedom. Yet even seasoned observers of the religious liberty abuses in communist Vietnam are surprised at the ferocity in the latest persecution of Christians. (BP)