Christian Persecution in LAOS – World Watch List # 18 (Open Doors)

LAOS (Wikipedia)
Government: Communist state
Main Religion: Buddhism
Population: 6.6 million (170,000 Christians)

Laos, officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west.

Open Doors: Laos is unique as one of the few remaining Marxist-Leninist countries that also follows Theravada Buddhism. Being Lao is synonymous with being Buddhist; Christians who do not participate in traditional festivities and ceremonies face Buddhist aggression.

Evangelism is effectively prohibited on the grounds it would create social division. Families see Christianity as breaking family unity.

The majority of Christians are from a tribal background, and face severe persecution – mostly instigated by animists and spiritists who lose their trade due to conversions.

Please Pray:

+ That Christians will respond to monitoring by village officials with wisdom and sensitivity
+ For believers from the Katin or Hmong tribes, who are especially vulnerable. Some have been killed in army clashes
+ Give thanks for reports that orders to expel 10 Christian families from their village were retracted.

Persecution Dynamics

The state and the ruling Communist party put heavy pressure on the small Christian community in Laos. On paper, the government protects the rights of Christians but this is not the case in practice. Three Christian denominations are registered yet Christians remain the number one enemy of the state.

Persecution is mostly instigated by animists and spiritists who lose their trade due to conversions to Christianity. Therefore, there are high levels of persecution in tribal areas and villages.

The government promotes Lao culture which includes teaching Buddhist practices. If Christians do not participate in traditional festivities and ceremonies, they face Buddhist aggression.

In 2012 at least three churches closed under Decree 92, the principal legislation defining religious practices and favouring Buddhism.

There were, however, encouraging reports of an official stopping the expulsion of 10 Christian families. No major changes are expected as the government continues to favour Buddhism, therefore encouraging local religious and political leaders to pressurise the Christian minority.

ANECDOTAL REPORT:

Former Buddhists Kapono* and his family fled their house on Jan. 9, 2013 due to persecution they were facing at the hands of relatives and villagers. The believers were barely two weeks in their faith in Christ when they left their village in Southern Laos.

“When the family returned home (from a church in another village), their cousins and neighbors persecuted them,” according to a local source. “Last Jan. 6, they took Kapono’s cow…and then pushed him and his family out of the village. The believers lost their land, which was about four acres.

Kapono and his family are now staying at the house of a Christian friend in a nearby village.

* Kapono – not his real name.