Birth date: June 17, 1958
Activity: Pastor in the Mennonite Church, land rights activist
Date of arrest: August 16, 2010
Sentence: Sentenced to 6 years imprisonment (later reduced to 5 years) followed by 5 years house arrest on May 30, 2011
Charge: Attempting to overthrow the government (Article 79)
Current location: Xuan Loc Prison, Dong Nai province
Duong Kim Khai is a pastor for the Mennonite Church in Vietnam, a long time advocate for aggrieved farmers, a democracy activist, and member of Viet Tan. Pastor Khai truly embodies the religious spirit of which he preaches, living to serve others in spite of his own difficult and crippling hardships.
Born to an impoverished family in Hanoi, he rose from dire beginnings marked with periods of detainment to become a community leader and devoted advocate for the many farmers dispossessed of their lands in the Mekong Delta.
In 1972, he experienced his first brush with police brutality, when the 14 year-old Khai was arrested by security police in Hanoi and underwent a whole night of interrogation.
In July 1985, Khai was detained in Hoa Lo prison for 13 months and endured daily interrogation sessions. Without legal basis for detention, the court placed him in house arrest but Khai successfully petitioned for his release.
By the 1990s in Saigon, Khai devoted himself to his religious faith and was subsequently arrested and detained 13 times, often while trying to organize prayer sessions. From 1999 to 2004, his personal and professional endeavors turned to helping farmers petition local governments for redress.
He started to mobilize followers but without permission to worship, his home became his church, and the parish gathered became a community mobilizing against graft. His home was not only a place of worship, but a community center where farmers, often illiterate, came to seek assistance in petitioning authorities.
The local government, seeking to make an example of him, seized his home and jailed him for two years. Upon his release in 2006, Khai and his family took up residence in a cattle shed of a supporter. He subsequently founded the Mennonite Cattle Shed Congregation, which advocated for religious freedom and social justice.
Pastor Duong Kim Khai was quietly arrested on August 10, 2010 under Article 79 of the Vietnamese penal code. The condition of his health and place of detention was kept from his family by authorities until October 12, 2010 when his family received written confirmation of his arrest.
Aside from nurturing the spiritual lives of his parishioners, Pastor Khai, for the past 10 years, has dedicated his life to helping the victims of injustice from all faiths in Ben Tre and Dong Thap.
A member of Viet Tan, Pastor Khai has been active in helping farmers petition for return of confiscated lands. In 2011, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that the Hanoi government’s detention and conviction of Duong Kim Khai and 6 other activists is in violation of international law.
Pastor Khai is married with a 19 year old son, Duong Manh Hung. His wife, Mai Thi Dung, suffered a stroke in 2004 and was confined to bed rest. She passed away on March 23, 2012, having never been able to visit her husband in prison.