Release International

Summary: Christian workers crippled and driven insane by torture in Vietnam - including a 21-year-old woman. Two of the Mennonite Six are released and report appalling brutality behind bars. Two others go to appeal on Feb 2.

Alarming details are emerging of the brutal torture of Christians known as the Mennonite Six, jailed in Vietnam for practising their faith. One church worker has been crippled and a young woman evangelist has been driven insane.

Two of the Mennonite Six have been released after serving their sentence. Two others are appealing against the sentence on February 2. Meanwhile the appalling brutality against believers behind bars has been condemned by the London-based Release International (RI), which serves the persecuted church. RI is calling for the immediate release of the four Mennonites who remain in jail.

The two brothers who have been set free, Nguyen Huu Nghia, 24, and 22-year-old Nguyen Thanh Nhan, were both given nine-month prison sentences for 'resisting police officers doing their duty'. Their crime was to challenge plain-clothes officers who were staking out their Mennonite Church.

Released prisoner Nguyen Thanh Nhan

The jailed include church leader Rev Nguyen Hong Quang, a well-known and outspoken human rights campaigner. Eddie Lyle, Chief Executive of Release International says: 'No regime will ever silence human rights workers by abusing their human rights, or stamp out Christianity by brutalising believers.'

Rev Quang remains in prison

The two brothers who have been released were beaten so hard and so often that their nervous systems are permanently damaged. Nhan, an evangelist, describes his body as 'withered'. 'My left leg is partly paralysed and I can stand and walk only with difficulty,' he says. Doctors have told his brother, a church elder, that the damage done to his own arteries and nervous system is 'potentially life-threatening'.

Le Thi Hong Lien has been tortured to the point of insanity

And there is growing concern for the Mennonite evangelist Le Thi Hong Lien, aged 21, the only woman among the six, who has been tortured to the point of insanity. Her father, Le Quang Du, got this message out after visiting her in Chi Hoa Prison:

'When they dragged her out for me I could see that her right eye was very swollen and filled with pus. When my daughter saw me she could only stand and cry profusely, her thin arms wrapped around her fearfully.

'Two female police officers came to me to say that my daughter has completely lost her mind and was constantly urinating and defecating wherever she happened to be. Because of this they beat her very savagely, even more.

'As they dragged my daughter back into prison I watched her feet disappear and I could only weep some more. O Lord, please keep these tears of mine in a bottle.'

Le Quang Du, who has visited his daughter in prison

The authorities reportedly enticed hardened criminals to beat the believers unconscious, rewarding them with cigarettes and food.

Le, a school-teacher, was given a one-year sentence in November; other church members received sentences of up to three years.

Their arrests followed an incident last March when church members challenged undercover police officers who were staking out the Vietnam Mennonite Church.

Eddie Lyle of Release International says: 'What a searing indictment that Vietnam should consider it necessary to beat a helpless woman into a state of insanity and cripple a man simply for believing in Jesus! The world looks on and wonders what Vietnam is so afraid of.

'Release International is calling for the immediate release of the four Mennonites who remain in prison. But it cannot stop there - Vietnam must apologise for their ill-treatment and totally abandon all state-sponsored persecution of its Christian minority. These shameful days of brutalising believers and torturing women until they lose their minds must come to an end.'

The four Mennonites who remain in jail face sentences of up to three years. Their leader, Rev Nguyen Hong Quang, and evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach take their case to appeal on February 2 at the People's Supreme Court. But observers say they are unlikely to be released. The Supreme Court almost always upholds the decision of the lower courts.

Release International is a member of Global Connections (formerly EMA) and the Evangelical Alliance. It is a member of the International Christian Association, founded by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, which operates in 30 nations.

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