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Chicago (ELCA)-FI — A Laotian court convicted the Rev. Naw-Karl Mua, Light of Life Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minn., a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of "use of warfare items or ordnance" and "obstructing an official in the performance of his duty" in a trial June 30 in Phonesavanh, a town about 70 miles northeast of the capital, Vientiane. Mua and two European journalists were sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined about $1,100 each.
"I am appalled," said the Rev. Peter Rogness, bishop of the ELCA Saint Paul Area Synod, in a June 30 statement. "Those of us who work with Pastor Mua know him to be a quiet, religious man who cares deeply about the dignity of each individual," he said.
Rogness asked for letters to Laotian officials in Vientiane and Washington, D.C. "I urge people to advocate on Pastor Mua's behalf by appealing to the Lao government to release him for humanitarian reasons and to allow him to return to his family and congregation," he said.
Before becoming presiding bishop of the ELCA in 2001, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson was Mua's bishop in the Saint Paul Area Synod. "I have great respect for his leadership, integrity and intellect," Hanson wrote July 2 in letters to Laos's prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.
"I implore your government to show leniency toward Pastor Naw-Karl Mua," Hanson wrote. "His imprisonment will have profound impact on his family and church."
"Fifteen-year prison terms after a trial lasting two hours defies belief," said an Amnesty International news release. The human-rights organization added that the trial "was inexplicably held in the remote north of the country despite their pre-trial detention in the capital Vientiane."
"The trial was attended by U.S. Ambassador Douglas Hartwick and an embassy consular officer," said Richard Boucher, U.S. State Department spokesman, in a June 30 news briefing in Washington. "We don't believe that this trial and its outcome have served the cause of justice. The trial has fallen well short of international standards of jurisprudence," he said.
"We are continuing to convey our concern about the health and welfare of Reverend Mua to Lao officials, and we will continue to explore all avenues to seek his return to his family in the United States as soon as possible," Boucher said.
"Our Embassy in Vientiane has been in close contact with diplomatic representatives working on behalf of the two European nationals. Department of State and U.S. Embassy officials are also in frequent touch with Mr. Mua's family in the United States," Boucher said.
Soutsakhone Pathammavong, Laos's ambassador to France, indicated July 2 that diplomatic efforts to free the three men quickly continue. "This morning we talked with the ambassadors of France, Belgium and the United States," he told Radio France Internationale in Paris. "We talked of liberation, of deportation."
"I continue to be deeply troubled about the welfare of Pastor Mua and the others arrested along with him. The prayers of all of us in the Saint Paul Area Synod are with Pastor Mua and others detained, his family, and Light of Life Lutheran Church," Rogness said.
The government of Laos detained Mua since June 3. Mua is reported to have accompanied two European journalists into the Xieng Khouang province of Laos to help them research a story on human rights violations and persecution of Hmong people by the Communist government in Laos.
Mua went to neighboring Thailand on May 12 for a missionary project, something he has done frequently in the past because he has family and a relationship with a Hmong congregation there. While in Thailand, he met two journalists — Thierry Falise of Belgium and Vincent Reynaud of France — and entered Laos legally on May 23 as their translator.
Mua failed to return to the United States for his son's high school graduation, and his wife received an unconfirmed report that Lao military forces had killed her husband. The U.S. State Department refuted that report and said the Laotian government detained Mua with the two journalists, accused of cooperating with "bandits" to kill a security official in the remote northeastern village of Khai.
Mua is a native of Laos. He lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for one year before moving to France in 1978, where he lived until he immigrated to the United States in 1985. He is now a U.S. citizen.
Educated in the Twin Cities area at National American University and Bethel Seminary, Mua served as a pastor of Calvary Alliance Church, St. Paul, 1992-97, and as pastor of Hmong Central Lutheran Church, St. Paul, 1998-2002. Hmong Central is a congregation of the ELCA.
Mua was ordained an ELCA pastor in 2000. He is developing Light of Life Lutheran Church, which meets at Beaver Lake Lutheran Church, Maplewood, Minn., and is vice president of the Association of Asians/Pacific Islanders — ELCA.
Staff of the ELCA Saint Paul Area Synod worked through the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA), Washington, D.C., and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Geneva, Switzerland, to communicate with government officials and with other non-governmental agencies for Mua's release. LOGA is the ELCA's federal public policy advocacy office. The ELCA is one of 136 member churches of the LWF.
The international press-freedom association Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) also appealed to the Laotian government to release the three men.