Our defenders and prisoners

These are the records of highland people imprisoned for their faith, their organizing or their testimony, whose cases are well enough documented to set down in full: pastors and deacons of the house churches, a man who wrote down the names of other prisoners, a man who met American diplomats. Most were convicted of “undermining national unity.” Many had been to prison before, and went back. Each entry gives what the record shows. Many more names are in our prisoner records.

How many

No one publishes a single count of our people in prison. In 2011 Human Rights Watch counted at least 250 in prison or awaiting trial, and more than 350 sentenced since 2001. In January 2012 we told a committee of the US House of Representatives that 390 Montagnard Christians were in prison for their religious or political beliefs, some for up to sixteen years; in April 2013 we put the number at over 400. The records of both hearings, January 2012 and April 2013, are in our library. The UK Home Office found 39 Montagnards recorded as detained in December 2024. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom listed 32 Montagnards as not released and 10 as status unknown at the end of 2025. To all of these must be added the hundred people convicted together in January 2024, ten of them for life, most of them our people and nearly all of them unnamed in any monitor’s list. Reading the lists together, we count about twenty named people held on sentences that run beyond September 2026, or with no trial reported at all.

In prison now

Y Pum Byă also written Y Pum Bya, Buonya

Rhade, born 1964, of Buon Kmien in Ea Drong commune, Krong Buk, Dak Lak. His family became Christians in the 1990s, and he has led a house church ever since; the police first held him for ten days after raiding a Christmas gathering at his home. He took part in the protests of 2001, fled to Cambodia, and was sent back in 2002. He was arrested on February 28, 2002, after asking permission for house churches to worship by one account, and sentenced on December 25 to eight years and four years’ probation, and served them at Ha Nam prison in the north, 1,200 kilometers from his family, at hard labor and forbidden to pray. He came home on May 26, 2009.

On March 15, 2017, he asked permission to register his congregation’s worship in Ea Drong; it was refused and he was threatened with prison. On April 10, 2018, six armed police in two vans raided a service at the home of his deacon Y Min Ksor, seized the Bibles and took both men to the commune police station, where they were beaten and shocked with electric batons until they signed promises to stop worshiping with their church and join the state-approved one. On January 31, 2019, he was sentenced to fourteen years and four years’ probation for “undermining national unity,” accused of spreading distorted information to draw people toward an independent state. He is held at Gia Trung prison in Gia Lai; his term runs to 2032.

His church is called the Gospel Missionary Church by USCIRF and the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ by Church in Chains. The police summoned his wife, H’Bleng Nie, and their youngest son four times to tell them their religion was banned; in December 2020 the two fled to Thailand, were caught at the border and spent more than a year in the Bangkok immigration detention center before being bailed in March 2022. They have seven children. The chair of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance has named him.

Y Min Ksor

Deacon of the same church, arrested with Y Pum Byă at his own house on April 10, 2018, beaten and tortured into signing the same promise, and sentenced to nine years and three to five years’ probation. He had been detained and beaten several times before. He is held at Xuan Phuoc prison in Phu Yen; his term runs to 2027.

Ksor Ruk

Jarai missionary, born 1975, of Plei Toat in Ia Rsuom commune, Krong Pa, Gia Lai. He served a first sentence for “undermining national unity” from 2007, until 2013 by two accounts and 2011 by a third, and went back to preaching. He was arrested on October 30, 2018, accused of reviving Dega Protestantism in Gia Lai and Phu Yen and of urging former prisoners to meet and pray together as part of the struggle for an independent Dega state. On March 15, 2019, the Gia Lai court sentenced him to ten years under article 116 and probation to follow. His youngest child, of five, was a month old when he was taken. The 88 Project places him in the T20 detention center in Gia Lai. He is due out on October 30, 2028.

Ksor Phit Ama Yem

Jarai deacon, born 1970, of Plei H’Ra in Ia Hla commune, Chu Puh, Gia Lai. Arrested in 2016, accused of drawing people into the Dega Protestant church and of setting up local cells of a separatist organization, and sentenced that year to eleven years and probation. He is held at Gia Trung prison; his term runs to 2027.

Rơ Mah Đaih Ama Pôn

Jarai, born 1989, of Plei Ia Kha, Ia Grai, Gia Lai, of the Dega Protestant church. By one account he was first imprisoned in 2004, for seven years, for joining the protests of that year. He was arrested again in September 2016 with four others, accused of spreading Dega Protestantism in three districts of Gia Lai as a cover for reviving an insurgent group, and sentenced by the Gia Lai court in April 2017 to ten years for “undermining national unity.” No one has said where he is held. His term was due to end this month, September 2026; we have seen no report of his release. The four tried with him, Puih Bop (Ama Phun), Ksor Kam (Ama H’Trưm), Rơ Lan Kly (Ama Blan) and Đinh Nông (Bă Pol), were given eight and nine years; their terms ended in 2024 and 2025, and none of their releases has been confirmed.

Rah Lan Rah, Siu Chon and Rơ Mah Them

Members of the First Christian Church, an independent house church, of Plei Pa Pet in Bo Ngoong commune, Chu Se, Gia Lai. They were arrested in the crackdown on the church in December 2020, accused of contact with a pastor in America who, the authorities said, used religion to support separatism. In August 2021 the Gia Lai court sentenced Rah Lan Rah, born 1977, and Siu Chon, born 1975, to six years and three years’ probation, and Rơ Mah Them, born 1992, to five years. The two longer terms end about December 2026.

Y Krếc Byă

Rhade preacher of the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highlands, from Buon Don district, Dak Lak, forty-six at his trial. The church was founded by Pastor A Ga, now a refugee in the United States. Y Krếc served eight years in the 2000s, sentenced in 2004 by most accounts and in 2005 by one, and was released in 2013. He went on helping villages resist the confiscation of their land. After years of harassment for insisting on the right to worship, he was arrested on April 8, 2023; the same day A Ga was charged in absentia. On March 28, 2024, the Dak Lak court sentenced him to thirteen years and five years’ probation under article 116, accused of holding hundreds of online meetings and of gathering information that divided the people from the government. His lawyer, Hà Huy Sơn, told the court that his activity was religious and nothing else. In 2024 he received the Le Dinh Luong Human Rights Award. He is due out on April 8, 2036.

Nay Y Blang

Rhade, born 1976, of Song Hinh district in Phu Yen, of the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highlands. He was sentenced in 2005 to five and a half years for “undermining national unity” and, after his release, held for two more years in a re-education facility; the release is dated 2010 by one account and the facility 2012 by another. In August 2022 he met American diplomats from the consulate in Ho Chi Minh City to talk about the persecution of independent churches. He was arrested on May 18, 2023, for the church and for holding prayer meetings at home, and on January 26, 2024, the Phu Yen court sentenced him, without a lawyer, to four and a half years under article 331, for “abusing democratic freedoms,” accused of giving foreign organizations false information about religious freedom. One rights group gives the charge as secession and incitement. His term runs to about November 2027.

Y Thịnh Niê

Evangelist, detained in Dak Lak in September 2024 for refusing again and again to join the state-controlled Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South), and sentenced in May 2025 to nine years under article 116. A Y Thịnh Niê was one of four church members held by the Cu M’gar police from October 31, 2023, beyond the legal three days, after they invited Vietnam’s new president to their services; we believe he is the same man.

Rơ Chăm Grong

Deacon of the Dega Protestant church, arrested on May 10, 2024, during a campaign the authorities called the eradication of the “evil religion” of San Su Khe To, and sentenced by the Gia Lai court in March 2025 to seven years under article 116.

Y Pô Mlô

Arrested in Dak Lak in August 2024, aged sixty-three, for “undermining the solidarity policy.” He was sentenced in 2025: to between seven and nine years under article 116 by the account of Human Rights Watch, to eleven years for terrorism by the USCIRF database, which may have confused him with Y Mut Mlo, sentenced in absentia to eleven years in January 2024.

Y Nuen Ayun

Rhade pastor, born 1967, of Ea Phe commune, Krong Pac, Dak Lak; a pastor of the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highlands since 2013 and its vice-president since September 2020. He recorded what local officials did to his church. The district police put him through public denunciation sessions in 2018 and 2019. In January 2021 police seized a hundred calendars printed with the church’s logo.

He was arrested at home on October 7, 2025, as police searched the house. On August 5, 2026, after a trial of about two hours, with his wife and children in the courtroom, the Dak Lak court sentenced him to seven and a half years and four years’ probation under article 116. The charge was that he had taken more than 7.7 million dong, about 300 dollars, from A Ga to build a religious organization outside state control and in the end a separate state. His lawyer, Hà Huy Sơn, said the indictment named no act that divided anyone from the government. A Ga called him a simple farmer pastor jailed to frighten the rest of the church into giving up their faith.

Y Quynh Buondap

Rhade, born 1992, co-founder of Montagnards Stand for Justice; sentenced in absentia to ten years for terrorism in January 2024 and handed over by Thailand on November 28, 2025. See Y Quynh Buondap.

The hundred of January 2024

After the attacks at Cu Kuin on June 11, 2023, a mobile court in Dak Lak tried a hundred people together from January 16 to 20, 2024; ninety-nine were Montagnards by the UN experts’ count, ninety-three from ethnic minorities by Radio Free Asia’s. Ten were sentenced to life and the others to between three and a half and twenty years; fifty-three were convicted of terrorism against the people’s administration and forty-five of terrorism. UN experts condemned the trial as a discriminatory misuse of counter-terrorism law against Montagnard Indigenous Peoples and Christian minorities. See Cu Kuin, 2023.

Held without a trial we know of

Y Tup Knul

Rhade, born 1970, of Buon Ecam in Buon Trap, Krong Ana, Dak Lak, arrested on October 6, 2020, for his ties to the Dega Protestant church and charged with “activities against the people’s government” under article 109. Since then he has been held incommunicado in an unknown place.

Lup, Kunh and Ju

Bahnar Catholics of the Ha Mon movement, of Kret Krot in H’Ra commune, Mang Yang, Gia Lai, born 1970, 1988 and 1964. Lup had gone into hiding in July 2012 to escape police pressure to renounce his faith; he was arrested in March 2020, accused of spreading Ha Mon Catholicism and organizing prayer meetings. All three have been held without word in an undisclosed place since 2020. See Ha Mon.

Siu Yúi and Siu Dok

A pastor aged sixty-eight and a church member aged forty, of the Ba Na Dega Kon Kong independent Protestant organization in Gia Lai, arrested on June 1, 2026, under article 116. They are accused of using religious teaching to draw the highland peoples toward secession and independence, of training people from several ethnic groups, of collecting information and of links with organizations abroad. That spring the Gia Lai authorities dissolved their organization. USCIRF and a monthly religion bulletin place the arrests in May. No trial has been reported.

Released, or not heard of

A Đảo A Ma Dũng

Halang, born 1981, of Gia Xieng village in Ro Koi commune, Sa Thay, Kon Tum; pastor of the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ, which he took over after Pastor A Ga fled to Thailand in 2013. In August 2016 he spoke about his church at a regional conference on religious freedom and at the ASEAN People’s Forum in Dili, East Timor. He was arrested on his way to visit his congregation after coming home, on August 18, 2016, or August 19 by one account; his family heard nothing for five days, and he was held incommunicado for at least six months. He was tortured to make him confess.

In April 2017 he was sentenced to five years for helping people escape to Thailand, which he denied, under article 275 of the 1999 Code by most accounts and article 91 by Amnesty International’s. At Gia Trung prison other inmates beat him, his wife said, at the guards’ bidding. She sold their land and went to live with her relatives; their two children were sent to live apart with other relatives. He was released on September 18, 2020, nearly a year early. Since then he has struggled to make a living; a Christian charity helped him open a small shop.

Y Yich

Bahnar pastor of the Dega Protestant church, of Plei Alut in K’Dang commune, Dak Doa, Gia Lai; born in 1960 by one list, about 1966 by another. He was arrested on December 18, 2006, sentenced to four years for “undermining the solidarity policy,” and released from Xuan Phuoc prison on September 18, 2011, onto three years’ probation. He went back to his church.

Arrested again on May 13, 2013, he was sentenced on November 14 to twelve years and three to five years’ probation, for spreading Dega Protestantism, for contact over the internet with Montagnard pastors and, in the court’s words, “FULRO reactionaries” in the United States, and for meeting former prisoners.

He was held at An Phuoc prison in Binh Duong and then at Mang Yang in Gia Lai, with high blood pressure, hepatitis and kidney stones; the prison refused him treatment and would not pass on the medicines his family brought. In 2020 his son said he had lost all his teeth to beatings by the guards; in November 2021 the UN human rights office reported his health had gravely declined. That December his son Mrui said village and district officials had summoned him again and again and threatened to beat and kill him to make him give up his faith. Y Yich and his wife, Amying H’Dom, have five children. He was released at the end of his sentence in May 2025 and remains on probation.

Siu Hlom

Jarai, born 1967, of Plei Klan in Ia Bang commune, Chu Prong, Gia Lai, or of Plou Kuao by another account; one of eight Montagnards arrested in August 2010 after protests on the rubber plantations of Gia Lai. He was arrested for defending our people’s land and rights, and convicted on April 5, 2011, of adhering to Dega Protestantism and supporting FULRO: twelve years and house arrest to follow. His term should have ended in August 2022. His status is unknown.

Rmah Bloanh and Rơ Mah Khil

Jarai, of Plei Ia Le in Chu Puh, Gia Lai, arrested in 2014, accused of organizing meetings for Dega Protestantism and of telling contacts abroad about Montagnard prisoners of conscience. The Gia Lai court sentenced Rmah Bloanh in September 2014 to eight years, and Rơ Mah Khil to nine. Their terms ended in 2022 and 2023. Their status is unknown.

Y Wô Niê

Rhade, of an independent house church in Dak Lak; imprisoned from 2004 to 2011 by one account, for nine years after the protests of 2005 by another. He was arrested again on September 13, 2021, for taking online classes in human rights, Vietnamese law and religion, and on May 20, 2022, the Cu Kuin court sentenced him to four years under article 331, accused of compiling false information into reports for “reactionary forces overseas.” His term ended about September 2025; no release has been confirmed.

Rah Lan Hip Ama Kiêu

Dega church activist, sentenced in August 2019 to seven years for promoting Dega Protestantism on social media, encouraging believers to resist pressure to renounce it, and receiving money for separatist activities and for his church. He is married with five children. His term was due to end in 2026; no release has been confirmed.

Y Hriam Kpa

Born 1976, leader of the house church in Druh hamlet, Ea Nam commune, Ea H’leo, Dak Lak; Rhade by Amnesty International’s account. Arrested on July 30, 2015, he was held in solitary confinement and tortured before trial, and sentenced by the Ea H’leo court in January 2016 to seven years for “undermining the unity policy.” He served his sentence at Dak Trung prison in M’Drak. His status is unknown.

Y Ngun Knul, Siu Bler, Y Kur Buon Dap, Kpa Binh and Kpă Chin served the longest sentences of any of our prisoners the monitors have documented.

Those who died

Between 2001 and 2011 at least twenty-five of our people died in prisons, jails and police lock-ups after beatings or illness in custody, or soon after being let out early to a hospital or home. Two deaths are documented in detail.

• Y Ben Hđơk, twenty-nine, was arrested in Dak Lak on the evening of April 28, 2008, on his way home from work, taken to Buon Ma Thuot and held there for three days incommunicado while his wife and mother asked to see him. On May 1 the police told his wife he had hanged himself during a break in his interrogation and that she should collect his body from the hospital. His family said his skull, ribs and leg were broken and his teeth knocked out. Two years later the US State Department reported no developments in the case. See The years between.
• Y Bŭm Byă, an evangelist of the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highlands, of Ea Tu commune near Buon Ma Thuot, had been arrested and beaten in 2023, in August by one account and December by another, and made to renounce the church before villagers assembled for the purpose. On March 8, 2024, public security officers summoned him to a meeting at a cemetery near his home; they had taken his mobile phone and arranged to give it back there. When he did not come back, villagers went to look for him and found him hanging from a tree, his body marked by torture. The police have made no comment and no arrest. The UN experts listed him as a detainee who died in custody after being tortured.

Our register of the dead is in The memorial register.

The charges

Most of these men were convicted of “undermining national unity,” article 87 of the 1999 Penal Code and article 116 of the Code of 2015, the charge used for belonging to a church the state has not approved. The others were convicted of “abusing democratic freedoms” (article 331), of activities against the people’s government (article 109), of organizing illegal flight abroad (article 275 of the old Code), and, since 2024, of terrorism (articles 113 and 299). After prison comes probation, up to five years confined to home. See The laws used against us.

See also

• The prisoner records — the full lists, by province
• The church they closed — why a house church is a crime
• The memorial register
• Reporting safely — before sending us news of a prisoner

Sources

• US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims Database — entries for A Dao, Y Yich, Ro Ma Daih, Y Pum Bya, Y Min Ksor, Ksor Ruk, Ksor Phit, Siu Hlom, Rmah Bloanh, Y Wo Nie, Y Tup Knul, Lup, Rah Lan Rah, Siu Chon, Rah Lan Hip, Dinh Yum, Kpuih Khuong, A Kuin, A Jen, Runh, Y Thinh Nie, Ro Cham Grong, Y Po Mlo, Y Nuen Ayun, Y Quynh Bdap; 2026 Country Profile: Vietnam — the counts at the end of 2025; “Pastor A Dao” and the statement of September 18, 2020
• Amnesty International, Prisoners of Conscience in Viet Nam, ASA 41/0303/2019 — A Đảo, Rơ Mah Đaih, Siu Hlom, A Tách, A Hyum, Y Hriam Kpa
• The 88 Project, political prisoner database — A Đảo, Ksor Ruk, Y Krếc Byă, Y Nuen Ayun
• Church in Chains, profiles of Y Yich and Y Pum Byă, and “Pastor sentenced to over seven years in prison” (August 2026) — Y Min Ksor, H’Bleng Niê, Ha Nam, Y Nuen Ayun’s trial
• Radio Free Asia, March 28, 2024 — Y Krếc Byă’s sentence and his lawyer; December 10, 2024 — the Le Dinh Luong award; November 2, 2023 — the four held at Cu M’gar; August 19, 2024 — Y Pô Mlô; January 22, 2024 — the mass trial; ISHR, “Prisoner of the Month,” May 2025
• Human Rights Watch, “We’ll All Be Arrested Soon” (April 2025) — Nay Y Blang; “Vietnam: Former Political Prisoner Rearrested,” October 20, 2025 — Y Nuen Ayun; World Report 2026 — the sentences of 2025; Montagnard Christians in Vietnam (2011), in our library — Y Ben Hđơk, the 250 and the 25
• Christian Solidarity Worldwide, September 21, 2020 — A Đảo’s release; April 23, 2024 — Y Bŭm Byă; June 1, 2026 — Siu Yúi and Siu Dok; General Briefing: Vietnam (May and November 2025); Morning Star News, May 2024 — the phone and the first arrest
• Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Experts condemn misuse of counter-terrorism law against Montagnards in Viet Nam,” August 28, 2024; UN special procedures, AL VNM 3/2025 — the ninety-nine
• The Vietnamese Magazine, religion bulletins of June and September 2026 — Ba Na Dega Kon Kong, Ea Phe; US Department of State, 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Vietnam — Y Ben Hđơk; International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, chair’s statement on Y Yich and Y Pum Byă; UK Home Office, Country Policy and Information Note: Vietnam, Ethnic and religious minority groups (December 2024) — the 39
• US House of Representatives, hearings of January 24, 2012 and April 11, 2013, in our library and our library — our testimony on the numbers

Compiled September 2026. A case is added to this page when it is documented in enough detail to set down; the fuller lists are in the prisoner records. Names are spelled as the families and churches spell them, with the plain forms used by monitors given where they differ.