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The church closings are part of a broader, more intense attack on Christianity that includes imprisoning pastors and lay leaders, says Wilfred Wong, a Jubilee researcher and parliamentary officer.

"These are not isolated cases of provincial leaders' persecuting Christians—this is a systematic attempt by the central government to destroy the church in Laos," Wong said by telephone from London.

Open Doors with Brother Andrew reported in July that Lao authorities had closed 58 churches throughout the country during the previous 18 months. The crackdown, according to Wong, in part responds to recent growth in the number of Christians. (Estimates of the number of Protestants vary from 40,000 to 70,000, but sources agree that conversions have increased dramatically during the past five years.)

Eight Christians, seven leaders and one member of one church, were arrested on May 31 and released by July 3 after signing documents renouncing their faith, according to Jubilee, a Christian interdenominational organization (unrelated to the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief movement). The Christians were held in stocks or handcuffs in centers crammed with prisoners suffering oven-like temperatures during the summer. Three of the eight Christians were too weak to walk, Wong says.

"They renounced their faith only to appease the authorities, and deeply regretted it later—some were in tears," Wong says. "The pressure put on them was more intense than in the past."

The Marxist government in Laos has reportedly warmed up to Buddhism, which is adhered to by more than 60 percent of the population (another 30 percent is animist). In a country where the government is using Buddhism to foster nationalism, Christians—who make up about 1 percent of the population—face false charges of aiding supposed Western efforts to subvert the government, Wong says.

The climate of fear in Laos is such that even if Western operatives were present and wanted to use Christians to weaken the government, the Lao believers would never cooperate, Wong says. "Authorities go into villages, line up the Christians, and, with threats and intimidation, force them to sign affidavits renouncing their faith."

Those who comply reportedly must attend government re-education seminars and sign affidavits stating they "mistakenly believed the luring and deceitful propaganda" in becoming Christians.

Christian civil servants are asked to leave their positions if they do not sign statements denying their faith, though the government sometimes forgoes that step and immediately fires them. Additionally, the government has placed some church leaders under surveillance, restricted their movements, confiscated property and Christian literature, and beat Christians during house raids.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has nominated Laos for designation by the State Department among "countries of particular concern"—the world's worst religious-freedom violators, subject to U.S. action under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

• Write polite but firm letters of protest to the Lao embassy in the United States:
  
  Ambassador Vang Rattanavong
  Lao People's Democratic Republic
  Embassy to the USA
  2222 S Street N.W.
  Washington, DC 20008
  Fax: 202.332.4923
  
  

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October 1 2001, Vol. 45, No. 12