~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]
[Year 2002]

Hanoi closes Highlands churches

The Vietnamese government has been accused of mounting a fresh crackdown this year against Protestant churches in the country's troubled Central Highlands region. By the end of September, 354 of 412 churches had been forcibly disbanded in Dak Lak province alone and 50 pastors and church elders had been arrested or "disappeared," according to a November 13 report by Compass Direct, a United States-based Christian news service that reports on the persecution of Christians.

Quoting foreign human-rights workers and correspondence from Vietnam, the report said that local officials summoned pastors of the minority Ede community about four months ago and told them that their churches were illegal and ordered them to disband their congregations. Several thousand people from ethnic minority groups in Dak Lak and other Central Highlands provinces held mass protests in February 2001 against the loss of land to lowland settlers and the lack of religious freedom. A subsequent police crackdown prompted hundreds of them to flee to Cambodia, though most have since been repatriated.

John Hanford, U.S. ambassador at large for religious freedom, raised concerns about the crackdown during talks with a Vietnamese government delegation in Washington in early November, according to a U.S. official.

The Far Eastern Economic Review - November 28, 2002.