Seventeen days before his eleven-year prison term was to end, a Vietnamese Hmong Christian leader detained for spreading religion was released from prison, the Voice of the Martyrs reported earlier this week.

According to VOM sources in Vietnam, Sung Seo Pao looked well and was strong in his faith as he was released on 3 May.

First arrested in 1990, Seo Pao served eight months in prison and was released on the condition that he would not preach the gospel. Unable to meet such a condition, he was arrested again in May 1995.

VOM reports that a number of tribal Christian leaders are imprisoned in Vietnam for "spreading religion" and that police brutality against Christians, especially pastors and minority tribal groups, continues throughout Vietnam.

Most recently, NY-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new 16-page briefing paper that new evidence shows that Vietnamese security forces are continuing to mistreat and arbitrarily detain Montagnards Christians.

While HRW welcomed recent commitments from the Vietnamese government on religious freedom, it urged Vietnam to amend the regulations to allow full and unconditional religious freedom in order to end the official identification of religion as a threat to the state.

Vietnam was also recently designated by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) as a "country of particular concern," for having "engaged in or tolerated systematic and egregious violations of the universal right to freedom of religion or belief."

In addition, Vietnam is listed as No. 3 on the Open Doors International "World Watch List" that lists the top 50 countries where Christians suffer the most according to the intensity of persecution Christians face for actively pursuing their faith.






Anthony Chiu
Christian Today Correspondent