A Christian pastor in Laos has recounted his arrest, imprisonment without trial, how he was beaten almost to death – and told to sign a document renouncing his religion. He refused, preferring to remain in jail rather than give up his faith.

The British Christian agency Release International sent an investigative team to Laos and discovered that Christians are regarded with suspicion and treated with brutality.

A new video report on Laos has just been posted on the Release International website: www.releaseinternational.org. In it Pastor Khamxay describes how he was arrested for bringing foreign religions to Laos, a largely Buddhist country. He told Release: “They asked me to sign a piece of paper that said that I would not be a Christian because Christians are not good and not right for the Lao people. I didn’t sign it because of my faith.”

Instead, he shared his faith with the other prisoners in the cell. Five of the eight became Christians. When the guards found out, they beat him almost to death.

“After I shared Christ they took me to interrogate one more time. They said I was paying money to people to become Christians and be against the government. I said, “No, I didn’t do that. It is not against the government.” And they hit my head, they kicked my shoulder, my bottom and my chest.’

He says the guards beat him until he passed out and almost died. Today his memory has been permanently affected by the kicking to the head he received.

Laos is one of the world’s few remaining communist nations. It embraced communism when its North Vietnamese neighbour defeated America to unite the country under the hammer and sickle.

Like Vietnam, the authorities believe the United States is supporting Christians as a way of continuing its campaign against communism.

This leads the authorities to view some Christians as enemies of the state.

As Religious Intelligence has previously reported, the Lao authorities recently arrested 15 Christian families from the Hmong tribe. Many of the 58 men, women and children are thought to have fled persecution in neighbouring Vietnam. If deported they are likely to face brutal treatment — even death.

The authorities have also sentenced nine Hmong church leaders to 15 years’ in jail because their ministries were deemed to have grown ‘beyond acceptable levels.’

http://www.releaseinternational.org/