Laos: Christians Livestock Slaughtered
Animals confiscated as punishment for converting to Christianity.
DUBLIN, July 10 (Compass Direct News) – Last Sunday (July 5) officials and residents of Katin village in Ta Oih district, Saravan province, Laos, confiscated and slaughtered livestock belonging to nine Christian families in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. In June village elders had warned the families, 53 people in total, to renounce the faith they had adopted in late May or face “serious consequences,” according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom. When the Christians ignored this warning and attended worship services in a neighboring village, villagers broke into their pig pens and seized one pig per family, later slaughtering the animals and distributing the meat among themselves. Officials said the seizure of the pigs – each worth the equivalent of six weeks’ salary for an average laborer in the area – was a form of punishment for ignoring the order to abandon Christianity.