Eleven Vietnamese Christians — sentenced to a collective 90 years and eight months in prison for their religious practices — have mysteriously gone missing from police custody.
The individuals arrested between 2011 and 2016 consist of six Protestants and five Catholics, according to a report from International Christian Concern, a religious persecution watchdog group.
Among those who have disappeared are Degar Protestants Ro Mah Pla, Siu Hlom, Rmah Bloanh, and Rmah Khil, each of whom was accused of “undermining national unity policy.” According to ICC, the other two Protestant believers were accused of refusing to deny Christianity.
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“Degar,” it should be noted, is the term the Vietnamese government uses to refer to non-state-sanctioned Protestant Montagnards living in the country’s Central Highlands — a people group who have long claimed to face persecution for their religious convictions.
The five Catholic believers — Runh, A. Kuin, A. Tik, Run, and Dinh Kuh — faced similar charges for their involvement in the Ha Mon Catholic Church, also not approved by the Vietnamese government.
For context, in 2018, Vietnam enacted the Law on Belief and Religion, requiring the faithful to register with the government before they are allowed to practice their beliefs.
“The missing Christian prisoners speak to a larger problem within the Vietnamese legal framework for the nation’s minorities, like the Degar Protestants and Ha Mon Catholics,” ICC said in a statement.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom labeled the law as “complicated and burdensome” in 2019 and, in 2022, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) condemned the Vietnamese government’s actions against minority believers.
“Many Americans do not know the horrors of communism and the human rights abuses that happen daily in communist countries like Vietnam,” he said at the time. “The United States has a role as a leader to promote and defend religious liberty on the world stage, and that starts with denouncing the Vietnamese government for its track record of religious persecution.”
USCIRF has recommended Vietnam be classified as a “country of particular concern” because its government officials are engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.
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