Posted: 05/26/2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged

WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- The widow of a Vietnamese Christian who was brutally tortured and murdered may be in danger of losing her children to the state.

International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org
has been informed that the widow was taken to a police station and told she must sign documents giving her children to the state.

ICC issued a Press Release on April 30, documenting the beating and death of her husband, K'pa Lot, a Montagnard Christian jailed for publicly expressing his Christian faith.

In an updated media release from ICC, new information states that on May 3, 2010, his widow, H'Nguen, was forced to take her two children, H'Danh and Y-Ly, to the Nhan Hoa Police Station and told she must sign documents giving custody to the government.

"At the police station the security forces placed a document in front of H'Nguen," said Scott Johnson, a spokesman for the Montagnard Foundation.

"In this case they are harassing them, they are trying to coerce her to sign the kids over to them. The motivation is to take revenge on the wife for telling [the Montagnard Foundation] what Kpa Lot's last words were." [Scott Johnson is referencing K'pa Lot's whisper to his wife, H'Nguen, how Vietnamese officials had severely beat him. He died hours later from internal bleeding.]

Johnson said: "The police stated that she would not be allowed to see her children until they turned 18. H'Nguen refused, pleading emphatically that she was fully competent to care for her children. For 6 hours the police tried to force her to sign the document until she was finally released with the children that afternoon."

He added: "The document was some sort of proof they wanted to show she agreed to her children being taken."

ICC says this event occurred in the village of Nhan Hoa, Cu Se district, of Gia Lai province in the Central highlands of Vietnam.

ICC's Regional Manager, Logan Maurer, stated: "K'Pa's torture and death was a tragic example of the brutal religious persecution that still occurs today in Vietnam. It is all the more telling that his wife is now being threatened for getting word out.

"Taking away her children is a desperate action by a state that is attempting to coerce her into silence. ICC urges the State Department to hold Vietnam accountable by investigating this terrible action against a widowed mother, as well as the events surrounding the death of her husband."

ICC (International Christian Concern) www.persecution.org  is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441 or 301-585-5915.

Source: (ANS) www.assistnews.net