Fourteen Dega from Binh Phuoc province, recorded by name as imprisoned for their faith, their land or their people, all from a single district, Bu Dang, and arrested in 2005. Binh Phuoc lies just outside the Central Highlands, and its presence in these records is a reminder that our people, and the arrests, did not stop at the provincial line. It is a record, not an argument. Every line is a person somebody is waiting for.
Binh Phuoc is not one of the five provinces usually called the Central Highlands — those are Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Lam Dong. It lies to the southwest, on the way to the Cambodian border, and it is home to Stieng and Mnong villages whose people are counted among the Dega. All fourteen entries come from Bu Dang district, and every dated arrest falls in 2005, in two waves: one in August and one in December. A sentence is recorded for six of them, and the six carry the same note: land.
The record
| Name | Age | Village | District | Arrested | Sentence | Held at | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dieu Hel | 22 | Buon Jong R'hac | Bu Dang | August 29, 2005 | Binh Phuoc Province | ||
| Dieu Hel | 24 | Buon Dieng R'hach | Bu Dang | August 28, 2005 | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land |
| Dieu Kai | 32 | Bon Dak Mbrai | Bu Dang | December 3, 2005 | |||
| Dieu Loih | 36 | Bon Dak Ncang | Bu Dang | December 9, 2005 | |||
| Dieu Mbrung | 35 | Bon Dak Mbrai | Bu Dang | December 3, 2005 | |||
| Dieu N'hat | 17 | Buon Jong Du | Bu Dang | August 02, 2005 | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land |
| Dieu N'sret | 21 | Buon Jong Du | Bu Dang | August 02, 2005 | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land |
| Dieu N'sung | 37 | Bon Jong R'hac | Bu Dang | August 29, 2005 | Binh Phuoc Province | ||
| Dieu Nam | 21 | Buon Jong Du | Bu Dang | August 02, 2005 | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land |
| Dieu Nhong | Bon Bu Rpe | Bu Dang | December 5, 2005 | ||||
| Dieu Que | 19 | Buon Jong Du | Bu Dang | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land | |
| Dieu Sak | 40 | Buon Bal Pei | Bu Dang | December 9, 2005 | Binh Phuoc province | ||
| Dieu Sem | 35 | Bon Dak Ncang | Bu Dang | December 9, 2005 | Binh Phuoc province | ||
| Dieu Sung | 37 | Buon Dieng R'hach | Bu Dang | August 28, 2005 | 5 yrs | Ha Nam | land |
How to read this table
A blank cell means the information is not in our record, not that it does not exist. “Land” marks a case where the reason given for the arrest was a refusal to give up farmland. The name is the one thing we hold for everyone; the rest is what a family or a congregation was able to find out and pass on.
What this record shows
That every entry comes from one district, and every date from two spells of a single year, August and December 2005, is the mark of one campaign of arrests, recorded through the families it reached. The six with a sentence were each given five years and sent north to Ha Nam, a thousand kilometers from Bu Dang; four more are recorded as held in Binh Phuoc. For the others the sentence column is blank, which means no word of a sentence came out, not that none was passed.
Why Binh Phuoc is here
Human Rights Watch and others report on the “five provinces of the Central Highlands,” and Binh Phuoc is not among them; the fifth in that count is Lam Dong, for which we hold no separate record. We keep a Binh Phuoc table because the people in it are ours and asked to be recorded, and because land, the reason recorded against six of these arrests, is disputed on both sides of the provincial line, as the Dega villages stand on both sides of it. Anyone comparing our records with an outside list should expect this difference and read the prisoner records page for how the five records line up against the five provinces.
Searching this list
Names here were written down by many hands, from several languages, over years, so a name you cannot find is usually present under another spelling. Search the distinctive part of a name rather than the whole of it: drop the Y or H that begins Rhade and Jarai names, try the clan name several ways (Rmah, R’mah, Romah; Rcom, Ro Cham; Rahlan, Ro Lan), and try the name a family used at home, the “father of” name that begins with Ama or Bă. The full method, and the reasons the spellings vary, are on the prisoner records page.
If you know one of these people
Tell us what the record does not say: a sentence, a transfer, a release, a death, or a correction to a name, a date or a village. If you are the family, we will not publish that you contacted us and we will not add anything that identifies you. If somebody has just been taken, the information that matters is easiest to lose in the first hours; go to If a family member is detained and read Reporting safely before you write anything down. To see how these Binh Phuoc names sit inside the whole record, and the other lists worth searching, read the prisoner records page.
Corrections and additions
These records were compiled over years from families and witnesses, under conditions where a mistake is easy and a correction is dangerous. If you find an error in a name, a date or a village, or if you know of someone missing from this list, please contact us. If a person named here has been released, has died, or has asked to be removed, tell us and we will act on it.
Sources
- The organization’s own prisoner records, compiled from family and congregation reports; the counts here are our tally of this table
- Human Rights Watch, No Sanctuary (June 2006), in our library, on the five provinces of the Central Highlands; Montagnard Christians in Vietnam (March 2011), in our library
- Amnesty International, Prisoners of Conscience in Viet Nam (2016)
Compiled September 2026 from the organization’s own records of arrests in the Central Highlands, set against the independent counts named in the sources. The underlying records date from the 2000s; treat every sentence as historical unless you can confirm it, and tell us what you can.