The 2005 Christmas celebration by the Christian community in Laos was plunged into mourning by the murder of a Protestant Evangelist official, Pastor Aroun VORAPHOM, a few hours after he presided over a prayer session on Thursday 22 December, held in a church in Pakading, near Paksane, Bolikhamsai province (Central Laos), according to reliable information which reached the Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) today.

According to this information, after having led the religious service with the Christians from Pakading, Pastor Aroun set towards his village of Houay-Siet, located 40 kilometres further North, to celebrate Christmas with his family. After having vainly waited for his arrival until the morning of Friday 23 December, his closed ones searched for him and found his body, which had been abandoned near a stream. The Pastor was struck several times with a knife in the heart area, and his head was severed. His face was swollen and bore the marks of having been beaten. His funeral was held on December 24th, on Christmas Eve.

The LMHR expresses its deepest feelings and strong indignation to the murder of Pastor Aroun VORAPHOM, and offers its most sincere condolences and sympathy to his family, his close ones, and to the whole of the Evangelist Christian community in Laos.

It calls on the authorities of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) to start without any delay an impartial and independent investigation on this intolerable murder of a religious official, who had already been arrested in 1996 and detained for more than a year in Vientiane by the authorities of the regime for practicing his Christian faith.

Beyond this unspeakable action, of which the perpetrators should not remain unpunished no matter their identity, the LMHR solemnly demands that the authorities of the LPDR put an end to the repression campaign led against the religious and ethnic minorities in Laos, and to release unconditionally every person held in detention for their opinion or belief.

In the list of recent events can be found the arrest of 28 Christians in 2004 on Christmas day in several Lao provinces, the detention of ten Christians from Muang Phine during the Easter celebrations in March 2005, the sentencing of two Christians who refused to renounce to their faith to three years of imprisonment rendered last July, and the prohibition of the ordination of Catholic Priest Somphone VILAVONGSY in Vientiane in mid-December. Thus, in spite of the assertions of the leaders of the regime, the religious repression still continues in Laos.

In view of these blatant violations of the freedom of belief, the LMHR invites the Government of the United States to once again include the LPDR in the list of “alarming countries” regarding religious matters, which was established by the American Department of State.

It invites the international community, notably the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, Japan and France, to take without further delay concrete and appropriate measures, including economic ones, so as to bring the regime leaders to respect the fundamental rights of the Lao people, and to undertake the necessary reforms with the view of establishing freedom, democracy, and national concord in Laos.

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e-mail: mldh@mldh-lao.org