BACKGROUND: On April 10, 2004 tens of thousands of Christian Montagnards conducted peaceful demonstrations inside Vietnam’s Central Highlands calling for an end to years of persecution by the communist government. Vietnamese government security forces brutally attacked the demonstrators and Human Rights Watch reported on 28 May 2004 that “Hundreds of demonstrators were wounded and many were killed on April 10 and 11 on key bridges and roadways”. A Montagnard refugee describes the ongoing persecution below.

Testimony of Puih Biep September 4, 2004. At approximately 9 AM on June 7, 2004, two district paramilitary police jeeps containing twenty police including two commanding officers went to arrest Puih Biep at his house. Their commanders’ names were Dang and Chinh (their last names not known).

Puih Biep is a Christian Degar who was born in 1969 from the village of Plei Krung, Ia To commune, Ia Grai District, Gia Lai province. The reasons for his arrest, was because he was a laymen for the Christians at Plei Krung village and because he helped feed the Montagnard refugees who fled to the jungles. The police handcuffed Puih Biep and took him to the district of Ia Grai. They arrived at Ia Grai around one o’clock in the afternoon. Then they headed straight for the province of Gia Lai. Puih Biep was handed over to the provincial paramilitary police officers whose names are:

In a room on the third floor, Puih Biep, was handcuffed and interrogated. The two Vietnamese police officers, Thanh and Nam, asked Puih Biep three questions:

Puih Biep answered “yes” to all of these questions and told them that it was his passion. Then, the police severely tortured him by beating and kicking all over his body until he was unconscious. While Puih Biep was still handcuffed, the police ordered him to stand up and the police continue to beat him up every five minutes, when he fell down the police made him to stand up again. This lasted for five days.

Thanh and Nam were the two police who tortured Puih Biep. They hit him with their billy club on his head, on his forehead above his eyes blood gushed out; They slapped him simultaneously with their hands at his both ears which has cause him difficulties to hear at the present; they kicked him on his face, neck and body with their shoes; they pinned and cut his both ears with scissors and with the same scissors they smashed and broke his upper tooth; they took their cigarette lighters and burned his chin and his stomach. These two police officers tortured Puih Biep so severely by beatings and kicking until he was unconscious. After many hours later, he became conscious and asked for water. These two police officers were afraid that Puih Biep would die in their office so they sent him back to the district of Ia Grai. Here the police held in custody for 3 days to see if he would get better but instead he became worse. Therefore, on June 14, 2004, the police of Ia Grai district called for two Montagnards, Puih Le who was the village chief and R’mah Yan who was an elder from his village to pick him up and take him home. It took many days for Puih Biep to recuperate from the agonizing pain that he had suffered from the severe torture.

Although he still had trouble eating and his body was still in pain, bruised and battered, he did not want to go endure it again, so he fled Vietnam and headed for the refuge in Cambodia. He left the Central Highlands on the 26th of June 2004 and on the 18th of July 2004 he finally met United Nations workers and he is now under the care of UNHCR in a refugee camp in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The account of these events was told by Puih Biep himself.

THE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION CALLS ON: