TWO MONTAGNARD DEGAR CHRISTIANS KILLED IN PRISON: WIFE DENIED BODY OF HER DEAD HUSBAND BY VIETNAMESE AUTHORITIES

 

BACKGROUND: The indigenous Montagnard Degar Peoples have suffered decades of persecution by the government of Vietnam , namely; confiscation of their ancestral lands, Christian religious repression, torture, killings and imprisonment. In July 2006 the US State Department has continued to maintain Vietnam on the “watch list” of countries that are the worst violators of religious freedom. To date over 350 Degar prisoners remain in Vietnamese prisons for charges involving merely standing up for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia . Information below received direct from the central highlands.

 

DEGAR PRISONER'S WIFE REFUSED TO BURY HER DEAD HUSBAND AND TAUNTED BY AUTHORITIES: A s reported in our Media Release of 9 May 2006, a Degar Christian named Siu Lul was denied food and water by Vietnamese authorities in Ha Nam prison and tortured to death. He was 62 years old and from the village of Ploi Kueng , Habong commune, Cu Se District, Gia Lai Province . He had been imprisoned at the prison in Ha Nam since 2004.  On April 24, 2006 he succumbed and died from the effects of torture and lack of water and food.

On the day that Siu Lul died his wife did not have money to transport her husband body back to her village so she agreed for her husband to be buried in Ha Nam . But later in May of 2006, Siu Lul's widow inquired with the Vietnamese authorities on how to get her husband bone back to her village so that she could give him a Christian funeral. But, the authorities told her that she could not bring her husband bone back to her village until he finished his stipulated prison sentence. In this kind of attitude, the Vietnamese authorities really show their hatred toward Degar people.

 

ANOTHER DEGAR PRISONER DIED IN PRISON BECAUSE OF SEVERE TORTURE

Our Christian Brother, Siu Dolel, was born in 1955, from Ploi Oi village, Ia Ke commune, Ayun Pa district, Gialai province. He was arrested, tortured and imprisoned in Ha Nam on December 22, 2004 . According to our contacts, in May 2006, the prison authorities tortured him again by kicking, boxing and beating him with electric batons until his right and left rib cage were broken. On 25 June 2006 , Vietnamese officials came to his wife house and told her that her husband had died in prison and asked her if she wanted to see his body before burial. Unfortunately, his wife did not have money to go see him and so the officials then confiscated his identification card from her and left.

 

THE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION CALLS ON:  

• Concerned Embassies in Vietnam and the international community to urgently demand Vietnam to release all of the estimated 350 Degar Prisoners of conscience from Vietnamese prisons namely the prisoners identified in the Human Rights Watch report of 11 June 2006 before more of them die. For a list of prisoners see website: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/06/14/vietna13542.htm
  


• Concerned Embassies in Vietnam and the international community to continually pursue a permanent humanitarian presence in the Central Highlands to monitor human rights there by UN, international agencies and international NGOs.
  


• The United States Congress to insist that human rights conditions are directly linked to the US granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status with Vietnam.
  

The international community especially the United States, European Union and the United Nations to exert pressure on Vietnam to release all Degar prisoners and others as a pre-condition for allowing Vietnam to join WTO.  

Unless urgent action is taken it is feared only more and more corpses of our people will be released back to their families.