Christians in Laos are forced to drink blood and renounce faith
by Alex Spillius
Telegraph (15.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christians in the isolated communist state of Laos are being rounded up, imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to renounce their faith as part of a widening crackdown on their religion.
In some villages, Christians have been coerced into proving the renunciation of their beliefs by practising animist rituals, including sacrificing animals, drinking blood, rice wine and whisky and speaking to the spirits.
Accounts of persecution that have reached Christian activists in neighbouring Thailand, have described how seven Church leaders and a lay member were recently released after a month in prison in the southern province of Savannakhet.
They said they were denied full rations, placed in stocks or made to wear handcuffs and pulled into the prison yard to sign a declaration that they had given up their beliefs by police officers pointing guns at their heads.
The detainees, some too weak to walk, are recovering at their homes in Paksong. Their evangelical church, like 58 others in the past 18 months, has been closed down.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a London-based group, says the seven were held for a relatively short time because the authorities have become aware of the international sensitivity of their actions.
Laos is still run by hardline communist ideologues. Although they remain committed to maintaining an atheist state, they have eased their opposition to the country's Buddhist and animist traditions. Christianity, however, is regarded as a Western import that should be eradicated.
At present it is believed that there are more than 30 Christians in detention, some of whom have been held for two years, much of it in solitary confinement. Others have reportedly been beaten in custody.
In the past three years Laos has been heavily promoted as a tourist destination offering a glimpse of a "lost" Asia. The largely undeveloped, landlocked country began opening its doors to the outside world only in 1990, 15 years after the communists ousted the ruling royal family.
Well-to-do tourists from Europe and America, in addition to backpackers exploring one of the last frontiers of cheap travel, have poured into the country.
Yet in the main tourist destination of Luang Prabang, a charming centre of Buddhism and a United Nations heritage site, no worship is allowed on Sundays and all 37 churches have been closed.
According to Christian Solidarity, the authorities said they wanted to preserve the area's commercially valuable Buddhist culture.
Members of the bureaucracy who disagree with the crackdown on Christians have privately admitted that the politburo and senior command have repeatedly stated their intention to rid the country of what is derided as an alien faith.
Other reports - mostly smuggled out in letters by Laotians travelling to Thailand - say Christian families have fled into the jungle, eking out a diet from snails, bark, yam and berries.
The Christian minority, which numbers only approximately 60,000 out of the mainly Buddhist and animist population of 4.5 million, has been threatened with withdrawal of aid from funds provided by international agencies if they do not renounce their faith.
A government body known as the Front for National Construction has led the campaign against Churches. No one was available to answer questions yesterday.
Christians said arrested in Laos
Associated Press (07.07.2001)/HRWF International Secretariat (09.07.2001) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net C Email: info@hrwf.net - Authorities in communist Laos have arrested eight Christians and are forcing churches across the country to close, a British human rights group said Saturday.
The Jubilee Campaign said in a statement received here that seven church leaders and one church member were arrested on May 31 in Songkhone district of central Savannakhet province because they refused to sign affidavits renouncing their religious beliefs.
The statement said the eight men were charged with anti-government activities and involvement with foreign political movements trying to weaken the government.
Three of the detainees were now too weak to walk because of poor prison conditions, it said.
Residents of the Lao capital Vientiane, contacted by telephone from Bangkok and speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that a group of local church leaders had been arrested in Songkhone district, where a decades-old church was recently shut down.
Calls to the press department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane on Saturday went unanswered.
The Southeast Asian country is predominantly Buddhist, with only a small proportion of Christians. Although it is a one-party state, Laos's constitution provides for freedom of worship.
But in recent years there have been reports of localized persecution of Christians by officials apparently wary that church gatherings could be a focus of anti-government dissent. The secretive regime tolerates no political opposition.
''The communist government in Laos is intent on wiping out the church there,'' said Wilfred Wong, a researcher for the Jubilee Campaign, aChristian group based in Guildford, England that lobbies for the rights of children and against religious persecution.
According to a U.S. State Department human rights report on Laos, more than 95 Christians were arrested and held in custody last year, some for months. In isolated cases, prisoners were detained in prison with crude, one-leg wood stocks or hand manacles, it said.
Residents in Vientiane said that this year, some churches had been shut down in Savannakhet, Luang Prabang and Vientiane provinces and worshippers forced by local officials to renounce their religious beliefs. It was not clear if the officials were acting on orders from central government, they said.
Some of the country's longest-established churches are in Savannakhet province, where the first Christian missionaries came to Laos from Switzerland in 1902.
