ASIA/LAOS - A Protestant Pastor killed in a cold-blooded manner by the police

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Luang Prabang (Agenzia Fides) - There is confusion among Christians in Laos: Christian Protestant Laotian Pastor Singkeaw Wongkongpheng was killed in a cold-blooded manner by the police in the province of Luang Prabang. The crime was committed on the morning of 8 September 2015, but only now the news has been released. According to a reconstruction sent to Agenzia Fides by the NGO "Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom" (HRWLRF), five unidentified men entered the Pastor's house in the village of Na-ang, which is located in the district of Chomphet, part of the provincial territory of Luang Prabang.
At first they took his wife. Pastor Singkeaw, in wanting to help his wife, was grabbed and dragged. Since the man opposed resistance, he was stabbed him three times in the back and then the perpetrators fled. The Pastor's son chased one of the attackers and wounded him. The man is in a hospital in the Province of Luang Prabang. The injured man is an agent of the provincial police of Luang Prabang, in service as a prison guard.
Christians in Luang Prabang suspect that the five men initially had planned to kidnap pastor Singkeaw and his wife.
Pastor Singkeaw led a small community in Na-ang Church with 58 members. According to a local Christian leader, the Pastor was a good citizen, law-abiding, who led a simple and essential life. Between 1997 and 2002 he encountered the first problems when the authorities had ordered him not to spread the Christian faith, order reaffirmed two years ago.
The NGO HRWLRF asks the Laotian government to investigate the death of Pastor Singkeaw and do justice to his family, identifying and punishing the other four men, who according to local sources are also police officers, for the murder committed in a cold-blooded manner. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 15/09/2015)


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