Vietnam Urged To Free Jailed Pastor and Rights Activists
Christian rights activists and other advocates urged Vietnam Tuesday to release four prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, including pastors, amid concerns about their health.
Christian rights activists and other advocates urged Vietnam Tuesday to release four prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, including pastors, amid concerns about their health.
A Montagnard Christian in Vietnam was released from prison in February following sixteen years of torture by the Vietnamese government for protesting its treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
Evangelical pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh will always have the scar on top of his head to remind him of the years that he was imprisoned, beaten and tortured for daring to advocate on behalf of indigent people groups being denied human rights by Vietnam’s communist government.
Two dozen Christians in Vietnam were recently attacked by a mob for their faith.
Evangelist Franklin Graham said that multitudes responded to Jesus Christ during his two-day evangelistic crusade in Vietnam, and argued that the Communist government there is starting to warm up to Christianity.
After 19 long months of investigative detention following his Dec. 16, 2015 arrest, renowned human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai was finally charged with a crime on July 30.
As Pastor Dang Ba Nham, his wife and a church elder were praying with a recent convert to Christianity along a busy roadside, a large pickup truck with military plates suddenly veered across the street and struck them.
Earlier this month, the wife of an imprisoned pastor suffered severe mistreatment at the hands of Vietnamese authorities.
Two Christian activists who had previously served prison sentences were both beaten and detained in Vietnam’s Central Highlands last month.
Last month, Cambodian authorities ordered the United Nations’ commissioner for refugees to repatriate any Vietnamese Montagnards who were escaping from religious and ethnic persecution.
The persecution of religious minorities is now official Vietnamese state policy after Human Rights Watch released a June report revealing that government’s intentions to persecute any ethnic Montagnards who follow “unauthorized” Christianity.
Last week a group of pastors and Bible students were beaten by a mob that stormed the building they were meeting in and then attacked them, according to Release International.
Christian leaders in Vietnam are opposed to a proposed state law that would further increase restrictions on all their activities, requiring a permit for each and every circumstance, according to BarnabasAid.
Authorities in southern Laos pressure three jailed pastors and other Christians to participate in occult rituals and recant their faith in Jesus Christ, a religious advocacy group said.
Congressman Frank Wolf has called for the immediate dismissal of America’s ambassador to Vietnam after showing little concern for the importance of human rights in that country, according to International Christian Concern.
Vietnamese officials in Dien Bien Province recently destroyed two new church buildings belonging to minority Hmong Christians.
Vietnamese security forces have destroyed two churches of minority Hmong Christians in northwestern Vietnam and threaten to tear down a third, a Christian news agency said Wednesday June 27.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the Secretary of State name Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern in its 2012 Annual Report.
A mob of men attacked leaders of a Baptist house church near Hanoi Sunday, seriously injuring a pastor and several others, including women and teenage children.
An attack against minority Christians living in the central highlands of Vietnam in July left 16 men and women severely injured with one man still under arrest, according to International Christian Concern.