Posted on 04/03/2019 9:15:53 AM PDT by Gamecock
Foua, a farmer in his 30s, has spent three months behind bars in Vietnam’s northwestern province of Dien Bien. He will remain there for two more, convicted of deforestation – even though the law only stipulates a fine as punishment.
His crime? Cutting down nine trees to build a hut for his family.
But his wife, Cua, who did not want to reveal her or Foua’s real names for fear of retaliation, says her husband has been persecuted for being Christian. When she last saw him, he was in hospital, three days after he was jailed, his leg shackled to his bed.
“He thinks the police tried to poison him,” she says. “In his cell, the person watching him squeezed his genitals very hard until he was unable to walk. They did this as he urinated on himself, because no one took him to the bathroom.”
The couple are ethnic Hmong – a group that in the late 1980s began converting to Christianity after listening to an evangelical radio programme hosted by Protestants, broadcast from Manila. There are an estimated 300,000 Hmong Christians living in Vietnam, where the communist government is suspicious of all religion, particularly Christianity, which is associated with former invaders, France and the US.
Hmong are originally from China but during the 18th century began migrating to the rugged uplands of northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and the eastern parts of Myanmar. Tam Ngo, a cultural anthropologist from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, says the government is particularly wary of Christian belief among Hmong. The establishment of an independent kingdom is a prominent feature of traditional Hmong folklore and the government regards Jesus Christ’s status as a messiah as a possible touchstone for armed rebellion and separatist movements.
“Christianity is seen as leaving the nation vulnerable to the penetration of foreign cultural and political forces,” Ngo explains. “This adds to Hmong marginalisation, the distance [between them and] the nation is reinforced and in Vietnam leads to suspicion.” The Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) recently submitted a report to the United Nations documenting the persecution endured by the Hmong in Vietnam from 2002 to 2017: threats, coercion, torture, prison sentences and even death when in police custody. Christians in Asia: persecuted, oppressed … but keeping the faith
Nhat Vo Tran, executive secretary of VCHR, says persecution of Hmong Christians and Christians in general has increased. He cites the Law on Belief and Religion that came into effect on January 1, 2018, allowing significant government control over the practice of religion.
The law includes broad provisions to restrict religious freedom in the name of national security and social unity, requiring a multistage registration and recognition process for religious groups to have legal status. Registration is required for groups to preach, organise ceremonies, conduct religious education at approved locations, publish religious materials, accept donations from foreign sources or provide humanitarian aid. Hmong Christians who try to register are regularly denied and complain the entire process is designed to identify and repress minorities and believers.
“Non-registered groups – like Protestants – are not entitled to freedom of religion, so they can be repressed,” Vo Tran says.
“Vietnam routinely hides the real reasons of its repression against Christians. The advantage of using criminal law – like in Foua’s case – is that it is not visible or obvious as religious repression. It’s what we call ‘stealth repression’ … People are harassed in their daily life and if they want it to improve they have to renounce their church and/or their faith.”
The state is not the only source of persecution. Some animist Hmong regard the Christians as having betrayed their culture and identity, and therefore cooperate with authorities.
“In tribal backgrounds, where ethnic religions are still strong, people are forced to keep following the age-old norms and values of their community, so in order to maintain the tribe’s culture, tribal leaders will often react violently against new Christian converts and expel them from their villages,” the report said.
Other Hmong families were involved in Foua’s case. Cua says the family converted to Protestantism two years ago when their two children fell ill. They were previously unfamiliar with religion but a pastor from their province persuaded them. After that, “the kids got well”, Cua says. For them, the lives of their children depend on their faith. Due to their conversion, Foua’s family was banished from their village by Hmong non-Christians for 27 days. Upon their return, Foua was charged with deforestation.
Vang, an 80-year-old farmer from the same province, says he had been imprisoned and tortured several times because of his Christian faith. Once he was “kicked between 10 people as if I was a soccer ball”, he says. Another time, he was forced to crawl with a policeman sitting on his back and broke his knee.
The pastor who ministered to Foua and Cua, who said he could not reveal his name, has also been arrested multiple times. Eight years ago, his newborn son became ill. Due to his religious beliefs, the pastor was denied an identity card and documentation for his son. Hospitals were therefore unwilling to provide treatment and his son died.
Still, there are no signs Hmong Protestants are giving up their faith, Tam says.
“As long as religion, in whatever form [Christianity or Shamanism], is considered the core of life, then discord among kinsmen over the religion that govern their life will continue, and the torment will get worse if the government keeps condoning and encouraging it.”
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Hmong Christians persecuted by state – and neighbours
pen Doors International, which monitors persecution of Christians internationally, described the situation in its latest report on Vietnam.
“In tribal backgrounds, where ethnic religions are still strong, people are forced to keep following the age-old norms and values of their community, so in order to maintain the tribe’s culture, tribal leaders will often react violently against new Christian converts and expel them from their villages,” the report said.
Other Hmong families were involved in Foua’s case. Cua says the family converted to Protestantism two years ago when their two children fell ill. They were previously unfamiliar with religion but a pastor from their province persuaded them. After that, “the kids got well”, Cua says. For them, the lives of their children depend on their faith. Due to their conversion, Foua’s family was banished from their village by Hmong non-Christians for 27 days. Upon their return, Foua was charged with deforestation.
Vang, an 80-year-old farmer from the same province, says he had been imprisoned and tortured several times because of his Christian faith. Once he was “kicked between 10 people as if I was a soccer ball”, he says. Another time, he was forced to crawl with a policeman sitting on his back and broke his knee.
The pastor who ministered to Foua and Cua, who said he could not reveal his name, has also been arrested multiple times. Eight years ago, his newborn son became ill. Due to his religious beliefs, the pastor was denied an identity card and documentation for his son. Hospitals were therefore unwilling to provide treatment and his son died.
Still, there are no signs Hmong Protestants are giving up their faith, Tam says.
“As long as religion, in whatever form [Christianity or Shamanism], is considered the core of life, then discord among kinsmen over the religion that govern their life will continue, and the torment will get worse if the government keeps condoning and encouraging it.”
His crime? Cutting down nine trees to build a hut for his family...
HANG HIM!!
And he was chained to his hospital bed too.
But mccain went there and said it was great.
I can’t believe he would lie or anything.
Just when it seems Vietnam is wriggling out of its communist muck, its government does something stupid such as this.
>Just when it seems Vietnam is wriggling out of its communist muck, >its government does something stupid such as this.
They’ve doing crap like this for a long time. This story got out.
I was in Vietnam several years ago with my wife. We had a private tour during one part of it and this girl was sharing her life story.
She said she worked in a government owned hotel and was dating a guy who was a Christan. She herself was an atheist, I think. They were holding her back in her job until she broke up with him, which she eventually did. She ended up leaving her hotel job at some point to do tours and her old boyfriend called trying to get back together. However, she had already moved on, married and had children with another guy. Sad story but probably not too uncommon in communist countries.
Part of the history of the Hmong:
“Conflict [in southern China] between the Hmong of southern China [who had been in Southern China since about 2,000 B.C.] and newly arrived Han settlers increased during the 18th century under repressive economic and cultural reforms imposed by the Qing Dynasty. This led to armed conflict and large-scale migrations well into the late 19th century, the period during which many Hmong people emigrated to Southeast Asia. The migration process had begun as early as the late-17th century, however, before the time of major social unrest, when small groups went in search of better agricultural opportunities.[15]”
“The Hmong people were subjected to abuse and killing by the Qing Dynasty government. Kim Lacy Rogers wrote: “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while the Hmong lived in south-western China, their Manchu overlords had labeled them ‘Miao’ (’barbarian’ or ‘savage’) and targeted them for genocide when they defied being humiliated, oppressed, and enslaved.”[16]”
So it has always been, and continues to be with the Han Chinese in China - cultural genocide against all opponents and “minorities”.
Interesting story...
“Surprisingly, no foreign missionaries were physically present in Vietnam’s highlands when Christianity started to spread in the late 1980s. Instead, villagers stumbled across a Hmong-language evangelistic radio program broadcast from Manila. Thrilled by hearing their own language on air, Hmong listeners told neighbors and relatives to tune in as the message spread like wildfire.”
Same thing has happened via satellite TV in Iran.
That and the appearance of Christ in dreams.
God is at work.
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