Vietnam’s Hmong Christians are persecuted for their beliefs. Why does their faith make the government so uneasy?

Foua, a farmer in his 30s, has spent three months behind bars in Vietnam’s northwestern province of Dien Bien. He will remain there for two more, convicted of deforestation – even though the law only stipulates a fine as punishment.

But his wife, Cua, who did not want to reveal her or Foua’s real names for fear of retaliation, says her husband has been persecuted for being Christian. When she last saw him, he was in hospital, three days after he was jailed, his leg shackled to his bed.

The couple are ethnic Hmong – a group that in the late 1980s began converting to Christianity after listening to an evangelical radio programme hosted by Protestants, broadcast from Manila. There are an estimated 300,000 Hmong Christians living in Vietnam, where the communist government is suspicious of all religion, particularly Christianity, which is associated with former invaders, France and the US.

Hmong are originally from China but during the 18th century began migrating to the rugged uplands of northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and the eastern parts of Myanmar.