CHRISTIANS in the isolated communist state of Laos are being rounded up, imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to renounce their faith as part of a widening crackdown on their religion.
In some villages, Christians have been coerced into proving the renunciation of their beliefs by practising animist rituals, including sacrificing animals, drinking blood, rice wine and whisky and speaking to the spirits.
Accounts of persecution that have reached Christian activists in neighbouring Thailand, have described how seven Church leaders and a lay member were recently released after a month in prison in the southern province of Savannakhet.
They said they were denied full rations, placed in stocks or made to wear handcuffs and pulled into the prison yard to sign a declaration that they had given up their beliefs by police officers pointing guns at their heads.
The detainees, some too weak to walk, are recovering at their homes in Paksong. Their evangelical church, like 58 others in the past 18 months, has been closed down.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a London-based group, says the seven were held for a relatively short time because the authorities have become aware of the international sensitivity of their actions.
Laos is still run by hardline communist ideologues. Although they remain committed to maintaining an atheist state, they have eased their opposition to the country's Buddhist and animist traditions. Christianity, however, is regarded as a Western import that should be eradicated.
At present it is believed that there are more than 30 Christians in detention, some of whom have been held for two years, much of it in solitary confinement. Others have reportedly been beaten in custody.
In the past three years Laos has been heavily promoted as a tourist destination offering a glimpse of a "lost" Asia. The largely undeveloped, landlocked country began opening its doors to the outside world only in 1990, 15 years after the communists ousted the ruling royal family.
Well-to-do tourists from Europe and America, in addition to backpackers exploring one of the last frontiers of cheap travel, have poured into the country.
Yet in the main tourist destination of Luang Prabang, a charming centre of Buddhism and a United Nations heritage site, no worship is allowed on Sundays and all 37 churches have been closed.
According to Christian Solidarity, the authorities said they wanted to preserve the area's commercially valuable Buddhist culture.
Members of the bureaucracy who disagree with the crackdown on Christians have privately admitted that the politburo and senior command have repeatedly stated their intention to rid the country of what is derided as an alien faith.
Other reports - mostly smuggled out in letters by Laotians travelling to Thailand - say Christian families have fled into the jungle, eking out a diet from snails, bark, yam and berries.
The Christian minority, which numbers only approximately 60,000 out of the mainly Buddhist and animist population of 4.5 million, has been threatened with withdrawal of aid from funds provided by international agencies if they do not renounce their faith.
A government body known as the Front for National Construction has led the campaign against Churches. No one was available to answer questions yesterday.