In keeping with Arc of the Universe’s theme of religious freedom, Reg Reimer blogs on Christians in Vietnam. Reimer is part of the team of scholars who make up the Center for Civil and Human Rights’ project, “Under Caesar’s Sword: How Christian Communities Respond to Repression.” He first went to Vietnam as a missionary in 1966 and served there throughout the Vietnam War. He has travelled to the country numerous times since, connecting with Christians churches, researching the repression of Christians and advocating for them. He is an acknowledged authority on Christianity in Vietnam, particularly of the Evangelical tradition, whose followers have increased more than tenfold since the communist takeover in 1975. His book on the Evangelical movement, Vietnam’s Christians: A Century of Growth in Adversity, was published in 2011. Here is what he writes:
Christian believers in the remaining communist countries, even those that have made some progress toward religious freedom, continue to experience local or widespread reversions to discrimination and harsh treatment. An ugly campaign to remove crosses from hundreds of church buildings in eastern China is underway. From Laos and Cuba come periodic but regular reports of brutal persecution in local areas. In Vietnam, certain remote areas have never experienced the relaxation of persecution promised by changing regulations and experienced in urban areas.
A clear case in point is Dien Bien province in northern Vietnam. A rare and lengthy testimony of a Christian leader in the province was obtained by advocates. It details 25 years of repression against Christians of the Hmong ethnic minority. The leader himself spent 8 harsh years in various prisons, often in a “small dark cell”. He and fellow Christian villagers were often raided by officials, and forced to feed them – after which the villagers were thanked by beatings and attempts to pressure them to recant. This was done by forcing them to drink the blood of chickens freshly sacrificed to spirit or ancestors. Officials helped themselves to the Christians’ property, fields and crops and encouraged their animist neighbors to do likewise.
Many other abuses are listed, and the latest are very current. Earlier in 2014 groups of officials and animist Hmong they recruited raided Christians’ homes, abused the occupants, then tore their houses down, also destroying their gardens and taking their crops.
Authorities, whose goal is containment of the growing Christian movement, go to great lengths to prevent Christians from receiving teaching from qualified leaders. They confiscate Bibles and Bibles and Christian literature, and forbid meetings larger than the nuclear family. These enforced restrictions, all against Vietnam’s own religion regulations, have led directly to some Hmong Christians being led into cultic beliefs for which they suffered a brutal military crackdown in May 2011.
The Christian leader begs for the “the world” and the United Nations to come to see if Vietnam is living up to its promises on religious freedom. He also gives names and addresses of offending officials and Christian victims.
That such still happens in some places in Vietnam puts all religious believers under a cloud. There are no extenuating circumstances for abusing people for their religious beliefs and peaceful practices. As long as some people remain subject to regular abuse because of their religious beliefs, the whole fragile religious freedom project in any country is jeopardized.