<<previous | index | next>>
Human Rights Watch continues to receive reports of arrests
of Montagnard activists and church leaders, and the beating, interrogation, and
arrests of the families of Montagnards who are in hiding or have fled to Cambodia.
Recent incidents include the following. Unless otherwise indicated,
Human Rights Watch has received no information as to whether any of the people
arrested were subsequently released.
- On April 21, security forces arrested a villager in Dak
Krong commune, Dak Doa district, Gia Lai province. The villager was suspected
of providing food to Montagards who had gone into hiding in the forest.
- On April 17 at 11 p.m., security forces surrounded a house
in Dak Krong commune, Dak Doa district, Gia Lai. They arrested a man who
local villagers were sheltering there. He had fled from his home in Mang
Yang district in November 2004 during a pre-Christmas crackdown, when
security forces conducted dozens of arrests in Gia Lai.14
- On April 11, security forces arrested three people who had
been in hiding in the forest and two villagers suspected of helping them
from Ia Tiem commune in Cu Se district, Gia Lai.15
Soldiers continued to search for six others from Ia Ko commune, Cu Se, who
went into hiding in mid-December 2004.
- On the morning of April 3, a man from Ia Tiem commune, Cu
Se was arrested and detained at the district police station. Cong an co
danh (intervention police), together with district police officers
accused him of aiding Dega Church activists in the forest. They beat him
and forced him to drink alcohol. They told him to stop believing in Jesus.
They tied his feet and had him hold his arms straight out, crucifixion
style, while they hit him with their hands and kicked him with their
boots. When he lost consciousness they poured wine into his mouth. He was
released that evening.
- In Dak Lak at the end of March, police reportedly arrested
six relatives (three sons, one son-in-law and two nephews) of a prominent
Montagnard pastor who is a member of the government-sanctioned Evangelical
Church of Vietnam/South (ECVN). They were accused of being members of
FULRO,16
an armed Montagnard resistance movement that died out in 1992, and
opposing the government. Two of the relatives were subsequently released;
one after facing public denunciation in which he was accused for having
preached the gospel illegally and calling himself a pastor without
government approval.
- In late March, a Montagnard pastor who is a member of the
ECVN Provincial Committee for Dak Lak, was reportedly arrested in Buon Ma
Thuot. The reasons for his arrest are unknown.
- At the end of March, soldiers arrested eight Montagnards
who had been in hiding in Cu Se district, Gia Lai, including a
forty-year-old Bible teacher from Tao Rong commune.
- In March, security forces arrested a forty-three-year-old
church leader from Mang Yang district, Gia Lai. He had fled his village on
November 20, 2004, during the pre-Christmas crackdown.
- On March 26, soldiers arrested a Montagnard who had been
in hiding from Plei Yon Ngol village, Ia Glai commune, Cu Se.
- On March 21, police arrested two Montagnards in Plei Teng
Nong village, Ia Hru commune, Cu Se.
- On March 17, district and commune police detained and beat
a man from Dak Doa district, Gia Lai. They confiscated his cell phone and
accused him of being in contact with Montagnard groups in the US.
- On March 14-15, Vietnamese police reportedly arrested
twenty people in Plei Ke village in Cu Se district (no information as to
whether they were subsequently released or not).
- On March 10, police arrested three people in Dak Doa
district, Gia Lai who had been in hiding since demonstrations in April
2004.
- On March 8, soldiers searched villages and fields in Cu Se
district. Gia Lai for people in hiding. They arrested five people.
Villagers in Ia Tiem commune subsequently reported being very afraid of
being arrested on suspicion of helping to hide and feed persons in hiding.
- On February 27, police in Dak Lak province arrested Y Ruih
Eban, 38, an activist from Krong Ana district who had been hiding since
2001.
- Other incidents include the arrest in February in Dak Doa
district, Gia Lai of a Jarai man named Y Byun, who had been in hiding
since 2001 and the arrest on January 17 of a man from Ea Kao commune, Buon
Ma Thuot in Dak Lak, who was suspected of providing food to Montagnards in
hiding.
Since mid-March 2005, Human Rights Watch has received
increased reports of government security officials going to many villages in Cu
Se district, Gia Lai to search for people in hiding.
On March 30, police raided Plei Tao Ro village in Cu Se at 2 a.m. in the morning. They ransacked and destroyed the home of woman married to a
Montagnard who has been resettled to the U.S. That same night police awoke and
beat another woman and her six children (ranging in age from 1 to 12 years old) in an effort to find out the whereabouts of the woman's husband, who has been in
hiding since the protests of April 2004. He was arrested shortly afterwards.
On March 28, twenty soldiers were sent to Plei Tai Per village in
Cu Se. They searched the surrounding area with dogs. That night they ransacked
the homes of two women whose husbands have been in hiding since 2001 and 2004
respectively.
Around March 15, security forces entered a number of villages in
Cu Se district at night, ransacking homes and in some cases beating family
members in attempts to get information about the whereabouts of people in
hiding. Places where such raids occurred included Plei Du in Tao Rong commune
and Plei Yon Ngol in Ia De[r] commune.
Human Rights Watch continues to receive reports of officials
pressuring Montagnards to renounce Christianity, despite the Prime Minister's
Instruction in February 2005 outlawing such practices. Recent incidents
include:
- On April 17, two policemen summoned six men and one woman
from Plei Ke and Plei Sur villages and threatened them with arrest if they
follow or proselytize about “Dega Christianity”. They were told that if
they follow the Vietnamese church (presumably this means the ECVN, the
government-authorized body) there would be no problem.
- On April 14, authorities called a village meeting in Plei
Dun, Cu Se, and forced people to renounce Christianity and drink wine.
- From March 15-18, police surrounded many villages in Ia
Hru, Ia Ko, and Ia Pet communes. Officials called Montagnard
representatives from villages in these communes for full day meetings at
the district headquarters in Cu Se, where they were lectured by district
authorities as well as “police from Hanoi” (most likely officials from the
Ministry of Public Security) and warned not to follow “Dega Christianity”.
In some cases they were forced to sign pledges agreeing to abandon
Christianity and politics. Officials also conducted meetings in the
villages during this time in which they instructed villagers not to hold
religious gatherings.
- On April 26, Ia Grai district police officers delivered a
written summons to three villagers, ordering them to report to commune
headquarters. Four police officers interrogated them. They accused them of
“heading the separation of the believers” and ordered them to cease their
beliefs on the side of those who have “separated themselves from the
church.” The villagers reportedly admitted being among those who had
separated from the church (presumably meaning the ECVN) and refused to
abandon their faith. The officers slammed their fists on the table and
threatened them with arrest. All three villagers were beaten by the police
officers before being released and allowed to return to their homes. One
was slapped across the face and jaw; another was punched in the chest; and
the third was boxed in their ears.
- On March 14 at 7 a.m., commune police summoned a villager
from B-6 commune, Ia Grai district. He was interrogated and held in a
dark, windowless room for one day, where he was asked about the
leadership, practice, and membership of his religious group. He was told
that he needed written permission from the district and commune in order
to worship. He was warned that if he practiced without permission, he
would be arrested again.
- On February 25 at 7 a.m., two police officers from Ia To
commune, Ia Grai District summoned two men and a woman for interrogation.
They were asked whether they followed Dega Christianity or the
“Christianity of [Prime Minister] Phan Van Khai”. They were asked who in
their village followed “the religion that is political” and where they
worshiped, and ordered to cease following Dega Christianity. They did not
agree to stop. The police hit one of the men with their fists and beat the
second man until he lost consciousness. The three were released from
detention the same day. They were warned that they would be arrested if
they were caught practicing their religion again.
[14] In
November and December 2004, authorities conducted widespread arrests in the
Central Highlands. During a two-week period in December, at least 129 people
were arrested in Gia Lai province alone. See “Vietnam: Torture, Arrests of
Montagnard Christians,” Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, January 2005.
[15] A second
report about this arrest from another source said the arrest took place on
April 5.
[16] FULRO is
an acronym for Front Unifié de Lutte des Race Opprimées, or the United Struggle
Front for the Oppressed Races.
|
