Lao Officials Force Christians to Recant for Burial
Officials this week forced Christians in a Lao village to give up their faith in order to bury a family member in the village graveyard, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).
In Huey, Ad-Sapangthong district of Savannakhet Province, where immediate burial is essential in the hot tropical climate, the village’s eight Christian families quickly began to arrange a funeral for the deceased, a woman who died on Christmas Day who went by the single name of Wang. On Dec. 26, however, village officials ordered that her body be buried according to Buddhist funeral rites or be taken to a burial ground in Savannakhet city, HRWLRF reported....