months ago for holding a “secret meeting” has lost weight under harsh
prison conditions and is extremely weak, according to his family.
Police arrested Wanna and fellow pastor and inmate Yohan, both
identified only by a single name, on Jan. 4, along with several other
Christians in central Laos’s Khammouan Province.
Prison
authorities have repeatedly told the men that they will “walk free” as
soon as they sign documents renouncing their faith, advocacy group Human
Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom said.
Wanna is the pastor of an unregistered
church in Nakoon village, Hinboun district, while Yohan pastors a
similar church in nearby Tonglar village.
Hinboun district
police arrested Wanna, Yohan and nine others at gunpoint on Jan. 4 and
charged them with holding a “secret meeting” after they celebrated
Christmas without prior approval. Police then loaded the Christians onto
a truck and took them to Khammouan provincial prison in Takkhet City.
By Jan. 6 police had released eight of the detainees—including two
children ages 4 and 8—after they paid fines. A ninth prisoner,
identified only as Kane, was released shortly afterwards, HRWLRF
reported.
Wanna and Yohan were the principal breadwinners
for their families. Their imprisonment left their wives and families
with no means of financial support; several of Wanna’s children have
since left school to find work, according to HRWLRF.
Harsh
conditions in the prison have also taken their toll on Wanna; after a
recent visit, family members observed that he had lost weight,
contracted an infection and seemed extremely weak, according to HRWLRF.
The families have appealed for advocacy as both men remain in prison on charges directly related to their faith.
“Our greatest concern right now is for these two men,” a HRWLRF
spokesman confirmed to Compass. “Presently, relatively speaking, there
is less opposition and persecution of Christians, but these men need
help.”
A report issued in May by the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom states that while Protestants in urban
areas last year reported an increased ability to “worship without
restrictions,” provincial authorities continued to “severely violate
freedom of religion or belief, particularly of ethnic minority
Protestants.” Rights abuses including “detentions, surveillance,
harassment, property confiscation, forced relocations and forced
renunciations of faith” in 2010 have kept Laos on the Commission’s Watch
List for 2011.
Rice, Wells Needed for Katin Christians
In
Katin village in Ta-Oih district, Saravan Province, conditions for a
group of Christians expelled from the village last year have vastly
improved since the beginning of the dry season in February, when the
group resorted to begging for food.
“They’re still living at the edge of the jungle, but they’re in good
health, with a good supply of rainwater and food from the jungle,” the
HRWLRF spokesman said. “Each family is now growing rice on a few
hectares of land near their settlement. But they will need a supply of
rice every month until their first harvest matures in mid-September.”
If authorities permit, the Christians also hope to dig wells in the
coming months to ensure a more permanent water supply over the next dry
season.
Officials marched 11 Christian families, totaling 48
people, out of Katin village at gunpoint in January 2010 after they
repeatedly refused to give up their faith. The officials left them to
find shelter about six kilometers (nearly four miles) outside the
village and confiscated the Christians’ homes, livestock, and essential
registration documents. A further seven families, totaling 15 people,
were forced to leave the village last December.
Villagers
then thwarted the Christians’ efforts to plant rice on commonly-owned
village land and warned people in neighboring villages not to assist the
Christians as they were “breaking the law” by following Christ—even
though provincial-level authorities had told the Christians they had the
right to worship as they chose.
In recent months, district
authorities have tacitly recognized the expelled Christians as a group
separate from other Katin villagers and allowed them to remain in their
temporary settlement, the HRWLRF spokesman said. Other villagers oppose
their faith but are presently “not causing any trouble” and in fact a
few Christians living in Katin quietly join the outcasts for worship
without harassment.
“The district authorities directly
oversee them and provide education for their children,” he said.
“However, they don’t provide physical help.”
Authorities
have allowed some of the children to attend school in nearby Ta-Oih
township and allowed others to relocate to an orphanage in Savannakhet,
where they have better living conditions and access to education.
The situation is not fully resolved, however, as the Katin Christians
have no official documentation stating their right to remain at the edge
of the jungle, let alone their right to worship.
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