Release Date: 2008-08-11
Original Link: http://presszoom.com/story_145770.html
Source: info@hmongnationaldevelopment.com
Hmong National Development, Inc. (HND, a Washington, D.C. non-profit corporation, called upon the Lao government to release jailed Lao student leaders and hundreds of Hmong refugee that continue to be imprisoned as political prisoners in harsh conditions by the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR).
(PressZoom.com) - Washington, D.C. - Hmong National Development, Inc. (HND) today called upon the government of Laos to immediately and unconditionally release jailed Lao student leaders and hundreds of Hmong political refugees that continue to be imprisoned in harsh conditions by the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR)regime. Hmong National Development, Inc. also joined Amnesty International in calling for an end to the death penalty in Laos that is frequently used against the Hmong people and political dissidents in Laos.
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA260042000?open&of=ENG-LAO
http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ECA089467B0B473A80256D24003793CB&c=LAO
The Lao students were peacefully protesting and demonstrating in Vientiane, Laos in October of 1999 for a more open society and for the LPDR regime to share political power by holding free and fair multiparty elections with international monitors.
"The Hmong people in the United States and Hmong National Development, Inc. are calling upon the Lao LPDR regime to immediately and unconditionally release the Lao student pro-democracy demonstrators of October 1999 and Hmong refugees recently forced back to Laos who continue to be jailed in Laos in terrible conditions," stated Christy Lee, Executive Director of Hmong National Development, Inc. in Washington, D.C. "Many of the Hmong refugees forced back to Laos from Thailand have disappeared in the Lao gulag and reeducation camp system where they are endanger of torture and execution or have simply disappeared at the hands of LPDR security and military troops."
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/asiaandpacific/southeastasia/laos
Human rights organizations, peace advocates, non-governmental organizations and Lao and Hmong students organizations and others have repeatedly appealed and urged the LPDR to release the Lao students who continue to be jailed in Laos by the LPDR government.
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA260042000?open&of=ENG-LAO
"The government in Laos should be accountable to the international community to release the Lao student pro-democracy demonstrators and provide information about the over 1300 of Hmong political refugees recently forced by the Thai Third Army military troops from Ban Huay Nam Khao Refugee camp in Thailand back to Laos," said John Thao, with Hmong National Development, Inc. "Just like the Lao students arrested in Vientiane, the Lao LPDR government has imprisoned hundreds of the Hmong refugees in reeducation camps and jails; many been threatened, tortured, executed or have disappeared in recent weeks," stated John Thao. http://media-newswire.com/printer_friendly_1069172.html
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGUSA20070323001
Mr. Thao further said: "It is very sad that the hundreds of Hmong families brutally forced back to Laos a gun-point recently by Prime Minister Samak and the soldiers of the Thai Third Army have been broken up and sent to different places by the LPDR military and many of the Hmong men have been summarily executed or imprisoned without charges, others have been sent to reeducation camps and treated as political prisoners for no justifiable reason; we have reports that many of the women have be raped, have disappeared or have been killed, others have been separated from their children."
http://www.media-newswire.com/release_1070226.html
Contact:� Mr. Paul Xiong
Tele. (202 ) 629-0377
Hmong National Development, Inc. (HND)
P.O. Box 96503
Washington, D.C. USA 20090-6503
e-mail: info@hmongnationaldevelopment.com
Or: info@hmongnational.com
On the web at:
www.hnd-inc.org
www.HND-Hmongnational.org
www.hmong-national.org
www.hmongnationaldevelopment.info
www.hmongnationaldevelopment.com
www.hmongnationaldevelopment.us
www.hmongnational.com
Hmong National Development, Inc. (HND) is a Washington, D.C. non-profit corporation established in the Washington, D.C. area in 1991 and incorporated in the District of Columbia. It helps to serve the Laotian and Hmong community in the United States and abroad and give voice to their concerns in Washington, D.C.
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