The home and church of an imprisoned Vietnamese church leader was destroyed on July 19.

According to news agency Compass Direct, about 200 officials cordoned off the Vietnam Mennonite Church centre in Ho Chi Minh city's District 2 at about 8am. They then sent in a large work force that tore down the rear 8.8 metres of the 4.5 metre-wide building.

They also destroyed the first floor apartment on top of the church building, belonging to the family of Pastor Quang. This was the end a year of harassment for this Mennonite church.

Pastor Quang's wife, Le Thi Phu Dung, 31, who has three young children, was elected president of the Vietnam Mennonite Church in June. Her husband, Nguyen Hong Quang, the former president, is serving a three-year sentence for allegedly "resisting an officer doing his duty."

About 70 workers used sledge hammers and electric saws to tear down a legally-disputed section of the Mennonite church building, as well as another 4.8 metre section of the sanctuary and apartment above it that had not been contested.

Pastor Quang was recently moved to a prison in distant Dak Lak province requiring two days and nights for a visit. Mrs Quang reports that her husband is in failing health, suffering under gruelling forced labour. Nguyen Hong Quang has a history of high blood pressure and gastro-intestinal problems. He has passed out several times while at work, unable to get enough nourishment and rest during a 30-minute break at midday.

Mrs Quang was at home with two of her three small children when the authorities arrived. Her mobile phone was reportedly jammed so she could not alert people. She and her children could only watch and pray in aguish.

The officials charged that the building had been built without a permit - a technicality rarely required in Vietnam. The workers left at 12.40 pm, leaving a pile of rubble behind.

Mrs Quang appealed to the workers not to destroy the church. One reportedly said to her, "Please sympathize with us, we are only hired hands and are only doing this because we need to put food on our tables. We don't want to destroy the church, and we'll be very careful not to destroy any of the church's moveable property."

The Mennonites purchased and first built on the land in 1995. The church expanded its building to accommodate growth in 1999. In July 2002, the fellowship added the four-metre section to the rear of the building, including a baptismal tank. Local officials who have brought repressive actions against the Mennonite church 77 times during the past year, charged the church with some building irregularities. The Mennonites stated their case in a petition, but the government never answered.

Later, officials tried using a new zoning by law retroactively against the church. They further charged that the new portion of the centre was too close to a drainage ditch and ordered it to be dismantled. They informed Mrs Quang last month that if she did not dismantle the section by the end of June, they would do so in July.

Notified of the event afterwards, a stream of Christian visitors came to comfort Mrs Quang. Some helped her clear some of the debri. A U.S. diplomat came to investigate and offered assurances to her. On July 20, a delegation of the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship led by The Reverend Pham Dinh Nhan went to visit and comfort Mrs Quang and her children.

The relentless pressure on the Vietnam Mennonite Church, a house church organization, continues unabated despite supposedly liberalized legislation on religion. Mrs Quang has written two appeals to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai asking how the Mennonite Church might become legal, but she has received no answer.

Police regularly raid small, quiet prayer and Bible study sessions at the Mennonite centre and forcibly escort participants to the police station for hours of interrogation.

In testimony submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam on June 20, Mennonite missionary Truong Tri Hien, who fled Vietnam last year, documented how local officials have consistently abused administrative powers to harass the Mennonite church. He told Compass, "This razing of the Mennonite centre is another clear example of this administrative abuse."

House church leaders in Vietnam informed Compass that they remain "highly sceptical" of Vietnam's supposedly liberalized religion laws inviting unofficial churches to register. Since the announcement of the Ordinance on Religion in November 2004, no churches have accepted the invitation to register. Among the signals they are waiting for is a cessation of repressive actions such as those taken against the Mennonite church.

They also question whether the U.S.-Vietnam agreement in May on improving religious freedom will produce any benefits for Vietnam's large and growing house church movement.

Alexa Papadouris, Advocacy Director of CSW, said: "The Vietnamese government has promised to make it easier for law-abiding Christians to worship without fear of harassment, but the action we see them taking is the destruction of a church and an innocent family's home. It is time the international community put more pressure on the Vietnamese government to end the harassment of Christians in both the cities of Vietnam and in the Highlands region."

Notes to editors.

According to the Mennonite World Conference (MWC), the MWC is a global community of Christian churches who trace their beginning to the 16th-century Radical Reformation in Europe, particularly to the Anabaptist movement. Today, close to 1,300,000 believers belong to this faith family; at least 60 percent are African, Asian, or Latin American.