Law enforcement authorities in Vietnam are subjecting house church leaders who confront injustice to relentless harassment, according to sources in Ho Chi Minh City. The renewed pressure is thought to be retaliation for recent incidents where police have had to retreat from persecuting Christians because of effective local and international advocacy.
The latest incident began on the afternoon of March 2 at the Ho Chi Minh City home of Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang, vice president and general secretary of the Mennonite Church, when Quang and evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach discovered two undercover security police spying on them from a stakeout about 200 feet from the Quang residence. The same pair of security police had recently accosted Rev. Nguyen Cong Chinh when he arrived at the Ho Chi Minh City bus station from Kontum province with three minority Christians seeking legal aid.
Quang and Thach took down the license number of the police motorbike and reported the presence of undercover agents to the head of their city ward. When Thach and a teacher named Mr. Hien went to take a picture of the motorbike for evidence, the policemen attacked them and a scuffle ensued. The two undercover agents fled so rapidly on their motorbike that it skidded and fell. When Thach and a co-worker, Ms. Lien, approached to see if the officers were hurt, the policemen struck both in the face.
About 30 minutes later, several dozen officers from Special Unit 113, the district police, undercover police and local defense forces arrived at the scene, along with the two officers involved in the scuffle. Armed with guns and electric cattle prods, they surrounded the Quang home and ordered the 12 Christian workers gathered there -- including Pastor Chinh who had just returned from Kontum -- to remain inside the house.
According to witnesses, police then tried to incite neighbors to attack the Christians. They also produced an unidentified woman to sign a bogus complaint against the Christians for “disturbing public order.”
Police officers then seized a church elder named Nghia and took him to the ward police station.
Later that night, three young evangelists, Pham Ngoc Thach, Nguyen Van Phuong and Nguyen Thanh Nhan, went to inquire about Elder Nghia. Authorities took the trio into custody.
Christians later learned that police beat Thach until he passed out. Afterward, several officers took turns kicking him in the chest, stomach and groin. They also beat Nhan into unconsciousness, attempting to justify their mistreatment of the young evangelists by charging them -- after the fact -- with “resisting an officer.”
According to reports, the three young men are still being held at the police station. It is believed they will not be released at least until their visible wounds, suffered in police beatings, have healed.
Sources say authorities had threatened the leaders of the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship with harsh treatment during a meeting on December 12, 2003.
“Any one of you who tries to arrest or identify one of our officers who is oppressing Christians will suffer heavy and swift punishment,” police allegedly announced.
In mid January, authorities in the Central Highlands province of Kontum destroyed a Mennonite chapel and three weeks later tried to prevent a Mennonite pastor from Canada from visiting Christians in the area. Kontum officials have accused Chinh, a leading Mennonite pastor in the province, of being an “anti-government activist.”
According to a church elder, on February 27 about 50 police officers and other officials raided the home of a Bahnar church leader, Brother Athe, while he was working in his fields. The intruders left rooms used for Christian worship in shambles.
Since the communist takeover of Vietnam in 1975, many American Mennonites who opposed the Vietnam War have avoided criticizing the government’s abysmal human rights record.However, sources have told Compass that some Mennonites outside the country are now considering raising the persecution issue with governments abroad.[GTO comment: this is gratuitous anti-Mennonite spin. What ax is this group grinding?]
For their part, Vietnam’s house church Christians are tired of the constant harassment and are eager to appeal to defenders of human rights in the world community to help achieve freedom to believe and practice their faith, despite the consequences.
Here's a report on this from Mennonite World Conference: Vietnam Mennonite Church Leaders Appeal to Their Government (April 23, 2004) An excerpt:
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Leaders of the Mennonite Church in Vietnam have appealed to the government to release four men arrested on March 2.
In a March 28 - April 1 gathering for encouragement and training, 40 Mennonite Church leaders from many parts of the country signed a "letter of protest" on March 31 and sent it to the Prime Minister and to the Ministry of Public Security.
The letter protested "the entrapment, arrest, interrogation and vicious beating and imprisonment" of four church leaders on March 2 in District 2 in Ho Chi Minh City and the refusal of local authorities to provide any information about the leaders since then.
The letter also protests the actions of local authorities in the central highlands city of Kon Tum, including the January 16 bulldozing of the recently-built pastor's house that was used as a church meeting place. The letter cites instances of security forces terrorizing Mennonite church leaders among the ethnic minorities in the Kon Tum area and ransacking their houses.
In Binh Phuoc province, powerful economic groups wanting to develop rubber plantations have seized property belonging to the Mennonite believers of the Stieng ethnic group.They have farmed the land for several generations. The letter protests the confiscation of this land which has forced many from their homes, leaving them with no means of livelihood.[GTO comment: Isn't it interesting how the forces of greed and racism join hands to promote 'revolutionary development'?]
"We strongly protest these actions of the security police and local authorities against us. We request that you exercise your responsibilities to stop these actions against our Church," the church leaders' letter concluded.
Robert Rhodes of Mennonite Weekly has more on the December incident mentioned above. He reports on the Hazards of Christianity Abroad (January 24, 2004) [link found at Third Way Cafe.] After Mr. Rhodes tells about the persecution faced by Christians in Colombia, he turns to Vietnam:
Meanwhile, also in December, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Mennonite pastor Nguyen Hong Quang escaped an apparent attempt on his life by a communist police officer - part of a long succession of incidents that have plagued Vietnamese Mennonites and other burgeoning house-church movements in that country.
Truly, these believers who face such perils walk right alongside the suffering Christ and need our prayers, but also our understanding of what they do and why. Most of us shrink before the prospect of personal danger, and yet people like these and so many others live day and night beneath the curse of often great peril.
Perhaps as we pray for those who face danger, and for the families of those who fall prey to this cruelty, let us ask ourselves whether we also feel called to enter such a narrow way.
The witness of these brothers and sisters holds a mirror to our lives and our churches. More than our sympathy, they need our companionship, in spirit and in body. Shall we stand with them?
Here's a link to the section on Vietnam in the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2003.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom includes Vietnam in its list of 11 Countries of Particular Concern (February 10, 2004)
Then they sent to Jesus some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?" But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, "Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it." And they brought one. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" They answered, "The emperor's." Jesus said to them, "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were utterly amazed at him.
--Mark 12:13-17 (from today's Sacred Space)
--Mark 12:13-17 (from today's Sacred Space)
