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October 31, 2003
A High Price To Pay For Truth
Laos (FFC) Sources within Phouthong Prison in Laos report Thao Moua and Pa Fue Khang were brutally tortured by the LPDR authorities. Both men's feet were cut open so they could not run or attempt to escape according to the report. Moua and Khang, both Lao citizens, were arrested June 3, 2003 along with European journalists Thierry Falise and Vincent Renaud and Pastor Naw Karl Mua of the United States. In an interview with France based Lao Movement for Human Rights, Pastor Mua told of similar torture to another Laotian, Char Yang, who was also arrested but subsequently escaped. The Fact Finding Commissions source said the two men have been transferred from Phouthong Prison and are being held in an unknown facility.
Moua, Khang, and Yang were reported to be guides for Falise, Renaud, and Mua as they investigated the allegations of genocide against U.S. Secret War Veterans and their families in the remote jungles of the Xaysomboune Special Zone in northern Laos.
After international attention was drawn to the arrests diplomatic efforts successfully secured the release of Falise, Renaud, and Mua. The others, Lao citizens have no such support and are facing several years in prison. The Laotians were arrested because of their refusal to abandon their foreign charges. Now they alone face an uncertain future within the confines of one of the least humanistic penal systems in the world.
Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Australian based Foreign Prisoner Support Service, the Lao Human Rights Council based in the United States and other organizations have denounced the brutal treatment of prisoners in Laos and have pleaded for the humane treatment of Moua and Khang.
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