On 07.06.09, police in Vietnam invaded the church service at Agape Baptist Church in Hung Yen Province and beat the believers, including women, and arrested a pastor and elder brother. The two church leaders were put in separate cells and beaten by five police officers so that they would not leave marks: hard blows to the stomach. They were released the same evening.
The congregation has had to endure harassment and abuse from the police since April this year. They disrupted church services and on 19.04.09, they beat Pastor Tuan with hard blows that made his mouth bleed. This also happened on 24 and 31.05.09. Since Pastor Tuan arrived in March this year, he has applied for registration as required by law, but was refused as the license had to be granted by the Central Bureau of Religious Affairs and the Prime Minister's directive only applied to churches in mountains and not churches in the plains. The denomination has 34 congregations in Vietnam. Leaders write to friends abroad that in their long experience, "persecution is often a sign that God is working."
