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March 31, 2011

NYT: Vietnam persecutes Christian minority, report says

by Seth Mydans
The New York Times

BANGKOK — Vietnam has increased repression of indigenous minority Christians in the country’s Central Highlands, closing small informal churches, compelling public renunciations of faith and arresting worshipers, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday.

The hill tribe minorities, known as Montagnards, are traditionally animist but have been converted to Christianity in large numbers over the past half-century. Culturally and ethnically distinct from the majority lowland Vietnamese, the believers worship clandestinely in informal settings known as house churches, which are illegal under Vietnamese law.

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