Missions

Laos government cracked down on rural Christians

The Communist regime in Laos persecuted Christians for a period between late July and early August, leading to some 90 disappearances, the detention of 20 families and three Christians for their faith, and one death.

The Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LDPR) apparently backed a crackdown on Christian worship services in three provinces of the country, resulting in the disappearance of some 90 people, including key church leaders, according to BosLifeNews.

The Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) also sounded an alert when the government moved against twenty Christian families in the province of Savannakhet (South), district of Ta-Oy, and the village of Katin, detaining them in a school and subjecting them to threats, intimidation and food privation.

The leaders only released 13 families when they signed the renunciation of their religion, yet they too are ordered to stay within the village, preventing them from working in the rice-fields and fishing in the rivers to carry on daily living.

The other seven families, who refused to deny their religion, are still in detention, under all kinds of threats and food privations.

In the same province, in the district of Ad-Saphangthong, village of Bouakham, the authorities arrested three Christians including a 40 year old mother of five children and have detained them in the district prison.

In late July the regime also detained a Christian and forced him to take in a great amount of alcohol resulting in his death, and demanded heavy charges from his family who wanted to give him a Christian funeral.

“The LDPR regime is targetting the Laotian and Hmong who live independently in rural, village, mountain or jungle areas outside of the control of the Lao regime’s military and police forces, especially Lao and Hmong Christians, who seek to practice their faith outside of close scrutiny security forces,” said Jade Her, Deputy Director of Hmong National Development, Inc., a Lao human rights group based in Washington D.C.

“Lao and Hmong Christian groups, and independent animist and Buddhist groups, living in hiding in the jungles and mountains of Laos, in many cases seeking religious liberty and religious freedom, are high-priority targets for attack by LPDR and Vietnamese military forces and thousands have been killed and starved to death in recent months and years,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA) also based in Washington D.C. that closely monitors developments in Laos and Southeast Asia.

The CPPA has issued reports earlier this year about increased religious freedom violations and persecution of Lao and Hmong Christians and Buddhist and animist believers by the LDPR regime.

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