Inciting social hostility appears to have become a key way government officials in rural Vietnam try to contain, or at least slow, the growth of Christianity among ethnic minorities, sources said, as ethnic Hmong Christians were the targets of two incidents in February and March in Vietnam’s northwest.
Village officials in Son La Province dragged a couple from their home in late March, and in February authorities in neighbouring Dien Bien Province incited a mob to beat a Christian family – including a 9-year-old girl – and drive them from the village.
In the latter case in Dien Bien Dong District, public security officers Hang Da Sinh and Cu Ninh Vang recruited some 30 villagers of Trun Phu Village, Na Song Commune, to accompany them to the home of Hang A Khua. Backed by an intimidating mob, the officers ordered Khua and his family of nine to recant their Christian faith and immediately and publicly signify their sincerity by re-establishing a family altar and worshipping their ancestors.
Ordered to attack
Khua refused, and the two officers ordered the accompanying villagers to attack the family. They did so vehemently, swinging short lengths of electrical cable at both adults and children, Khua reported in a petition to international human rights organisations and the United Nations. The parents sustained large welts and bruises, as did their 9year-old daughter, Hang Thi Dia. Cell phone photos of their injuries accompanied the petition.
Next, officers Sinh and Vang told the crowd to ransack the house. They announced the confiscation of the family’s rice fields, drove them out of their house and proceeded to smash and demolish it. Finally, after three hours of such abuse, the officers announced that the family was permanently expelled from Dien Bien Dong District and incited the mob to chase them away.
‘Today my family is living in the forest without a place to call home’, Khua wrote in a report, ‘and day after day we do not know how we will live or where we will end up … please rescue my family’.
The tragic incident took place in a region noted for ongoing violence against Christians. Khua believes the orders come from high officials; he cited the Communist Party and the Central Government of Vietnam as having given permission to Dien Bien District authorities ‘to order’ their public security officers to attack his family.
