Repression of Montagnards: Conflicts Over Land and Religion in Vietnam's Central Highlands

In February 2001, several thousand members of indigenous minorities from Vietnam's Central Highlands, often collectively known as Montagnards, held a series of largely peaceful demonstration calling for independence, return of ancestral lands, and religious freedom. Vietnamese authorities responded with a massive show of force, deploying thousands of police and soldiers to disperse the protesters. In the weeks and months following the demonstration, authorities arrested hudreds of highlanders, sometimes using torture to elicit confessions and public statements of remorse by protest organizers.