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Reports: Vietnam Conducts Deadly Crackdown on Ethnic Hmong

   VOA News  May 09, 2011

Photo: Reuters

   An ethnic Hmong minority woman returns home from a market in Phu Yen
   district, in Vietnam's northern Son La province, northwest of Hanoi
   (FILE).

   Two U.S.-based advocacy groups say Vietnamese security forces are
   continuing a deadly crackdown on thousands of ethnic Hmong Christians
   along the border with Laos.
   The Washington-based [1]Center for Public Policy Analysis and the group
   Hmong Advance say dozens of protesters have been killed and hundreds of
   others wounded since the crackdown was launched in late April in Dien
   Bien province. The CPPA reported 14 additional deaths overnight Sunday,
   saying the death toll is now 63.
   These casualty figures have not been independently confirmed. Most
   foreign journalists have been barred from the region.
   The U.S. embassy in Vietnam said last week that it was looking into the
   reports. It called on all sides to avoid violence.
   Hmong Advance spokeswoman Christy Lee said the crackdown was launched
   April 30 in the Vietnamese border town of Muong Nhe, when about 8,500
   Hmong gathered to pray and demand land reforms and expanded religious
   freedoms. Lee said hundreds of protesters were arrested, with some of
   them transported to locations in Vietnam and nearby Laos.
   Vietnamese officials last week said troops were used to break up a rare
   protest in the region. But authorities said only minor clashes had
   occurred and that no one was arrested.

   Some information for this report was provided by AFP.

References

   1. http://www.cppa-dc.org/id51.html

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