LMHR: LAOS: VIOLENT CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHRISTIAN IN THE PROVINCE OF SAVANNAKHET

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12/05/2003 | LMHR: LAOS: VIOLENT CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHRISTIAN IN THE PROVINCE OF SAVANNAKHET

Throughout April 2003, the authorities of the province of Savannakhet carried out a violent repression campaign against the Christians in several towns in this Lao Sounthern province, where over thirty Christian families were forced to give up their faith, and about 10 christians were driven out of their house for having refused to renounce their religion.

According to informations received these last days by the Lao Movement for Humans Right (LMHR), the Christian communities of three localities in Savannakhet province – Ban Kengkok, Muong Nong and Ban Nong Ing - have been targets of harassments and violence from the local representatives of the Lao Front for National Construction, a satellite organization of the Single Party in power, in charge of "the Direction of Religious Affairs" in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR).

This campaign of repression, obviously orchestrated by the authorities, includes intimidations and threats of all kinds in order to make life impossible to Christians who refuse to sign the act of renunciation of their faith: cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting from of the list of the inhabitants by the Committee of the village, exclusion from various public services such as the right to housing, protection and security...

In Kengkok village, where three pastors and their families were expelled on April 29 from the presbytery (LMLDH press release, May 4th, 2003), four other Christian families living nearby the former church -- confiscated and transformed into a scholl in 2000 by the authorities -- are subjects to daily threats and vexations from the communist officials. Eighteen Christians, for having refused to sign document renouncing their religion, already received the order to leave their dwellings.

Out of 40 Christian families in Kengkok, confronting to daily annoyances and threats, 32 families surrendered by signing the act of renunciation of their faith. To this day, only eight families are still resisting. According to recent informations, all ways and means are taken by the authorities to reach their ends, including the recourse of Christians from a congregation controlled by the Communist Party to spy on activities, behaviour, places and hours of meetings and prayers of other Christians. In Nong Ing village, Champhone district, where the church was destroyed by the local militia under the leadership of the village Committee, three Christian leaders were arrested on April 3rd, 2003 and taken along, handcuffed, for the practice of their faith. They were released one week later after a broadcast of their detention by international press. But it is to be noted that the documents authorizing their release, sent directly by the Direction of Religious Affairs in Vientiane, indicate that these Christians "were arrested for stealing and drinking in public places", inculpations that even surprised their village authorities for whom these Christians are known neither as robbers nor as drunkards.

In Muong Nong, four Christian families from the Bru (So) ethnic minority, made up of 13 people on the whole, were forced out of their houses on April 3rd, 2003 for refusing to give up their religion. Two families are now accomodated by the Christian community in Savannakhet while the two others went looking for shelter around Muong Phinh-Sepon. The authorities strictly forbid them to return to live in Muong Nong.

The Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) condemns these continual repressions which seem to be neither isolated incidents nor simple local authorities abuses of powers against religious minorities and ethnic minorities, but a real policy of the State, a policy where freedoms have no place, even though "freedom to believe or not to believe" figures clearly in the LPDR Constitution of 1991.

The LMHR invites the Lao authorities to end immediatly this campaign of repression, to free every Christians still in detention, and allow them, without conditions, to go back to their houses and their villages.

The LMHR renews its appeal to the American administration to register, without delay, the LPDR on the list of the Countries of Particular Concerns (CPP) on religious freedom, as required by the last report of the US State Department on religious freedoms.

The LMHR calls on the international community, in particular the United States, the European Union and countries members of ASEAN, to fully take into account respects of democratic rights, human rights and religious rights, within the framework of their relations with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

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