An ailing ethnic Hmong Christian leader in Vietnam said Friday he has been denied medical treatment at hospitals he had approached in the capital Hanoi, accusing authorities in the one-party Communist state of persecuting him for his religious beliefs.

Duong Van Minh, 52, who is suffering from a serious kidney ailment, said his relatives had inquired about getting him treatment at several hospitals in the city in recent days but that all of them did not want him at their facilities.

Minh, who is based in northern Vietnam’s Tuyen Quang province but has been put up at the Redemptorist Church while in Hanoi, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service he believed the reason for their refusal was linked to long-running persecution of his religious teachings about burial practices.

His sect teaches Hmong Christians in Vietnam’s northern highlands to reform their burial practices in a move that has been opposed by the authorities.

“The Tuyen Quang officials and police even go to other provinces to fabricate stories, slander people, and block them from doing things,” he said.

“Since August 1989 when we talked about [our practice], police and government officials monitored us day and night to find ways to repress and arrest people,” he said.

Officials in the Northern Highlands have cracked down on reformed burial practices in recent years, launching a campaign to force Hmong Christians to return to old traditions that involve expensive, week-long funerals, rights groups have said. …[…]

Radio Free Asia, 2014/02/14

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Hanoi Hospitals Refuse Treatment to Ailing Hmong Christian Leader