MONTAGNARD DEGAR WOMAN ARRESTED ON 22 JUNE 2006 FOR BEING CHRISTIAN HOUSE CHURCH MEMBER: HER YOUNG CHILDREN ON THEIR OWN

BACKGROUND: The indigenous Montagnard Degar Peoples have suffered decades of persecution by 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 relating to charges of standing up for human rights, spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia .

 

DEGAR MONTAGNARD WOMAN ARRESTED ON 22 JUNE 2006:

Vietnamese police arrested Degar woman named H'Anhep Puih (pictured left) on 22 June 2006 and put her in prison. Her two children were abandoned on their own without anyone to care for them. The woman's husband had previously fled to Cambodia as a refugee but voluntarily returned to Vietnam . The police accused her of being a member of a Christian house church but it is suspected she was really arrested to punish her husband who had previously fled to Cambodia . A witness reported to the Montagnard Foundation that she was in an extreme state of mental distress about leaving her children and was seen banging her head against a concrete wall and uncontrollably crying in a hysterical state. She is reported to have mental health and possible physical injuries at present however the police showed her no mercy and have kept her in prison.

 

 

 

THE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION CALLS ON:

• Concerned Embassies in Vietnam & international community to urgently seek the release of H'Anhep Puih and try to ensure she and her children receive medical care and urge Vietnam to release all 350 Degar Prisoners identified by the 14 June 2006 Human Rights Watch Report: 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 .