{"id":5154,"date":"2025-02-06T08:07:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T08:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T08:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T08:07:05","slug":"imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/","title":{"rendered":"Imprisoned Pastor Dies in Custody"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Diem and his wife, Xa, lived in a majority-Christian community, so they did not face persecution locally. When Diem would travel beyond the village for ministry, however, he was always under scrutiny. On Jan. 5, 2018, police and security officials surrounded the couple&rsquo;s house and announced Diem&rsquo;s arrest on suspicion of anti-government activities. Months of secret court proceedings ended with a 16-year prison sentence for Diem. On Dec. 14, 2022, Diem was permitted to call home and wish his family a merry Christmas. It was the last time Xa heard his voice. On Jan. 5, 2023, Xa was told that Diem was ill. She left right away, but he died before she arrived. His body was never released, nor was Xa allowed to take photos of it, but she did see that he had open sores and other signs of abuse. Xa has a daughter and a son &mdash; Sara, 23, and David, 20 &mdash; who have struggled because of their father&rsquo;s imprisonment and death.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/vietnam\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Vietnam and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2782\/xa-and-family\/\" target=\"_blank\">Post a prayer for Xa and family on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Diem and his wife, Xa, lived in a majority-Christian community, so they did not face persecution locally. When Diem would travel beyond the village for ministry, however, he was always under scrutiny. On Jan. 5, 2018, police and security officials surrounded the couple&#8217;s house and announced Diem&#8217;s arrest on suspicion of anti-government activities. Months of secret court proceedings ended with a 16-year prison sentence for Diem. On Dec. 14, 2022, Diem was permitted to call home and wish his family a merry Christmas. It was the last time Xa heard his voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Imprisoned Pastor Dies in Custody - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Imprisoned Pastor Dies in Custody - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pastor Diem and his wife, Xa, lived in a majority-Christian community, so they did not face persecution locally. When Diem would travel beyond the village for ministry, however, he was always under scrutiny. On Jan. 5, 2018, police and security officials surrounded the couple&#039;s house and announced Diem&#039;s arrest on suspicion of anti-government activities. Months of secret court proceedings ended with a 16-year prison sentence for Diem. On Dec. 14, 2022, Diem was permitted to call home and wish his family a merry Christmas. It was the last time Xa heard his voice.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-06T08:07:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"vomtechsupport\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/#\/schema\/person\/5ff286fd5505fccd2d5ebfd9d4203216\"},\"headline\":\"Imprisoned Pastor Dies in Custody\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-06T08:07:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\"},\"wordCount\":194,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/assets.persecution.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/VOM-Stories-iCommit-PlaceholderV2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"iCommitToPray\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/imprisoned-pastor-dies-in-custody\/\",\"name\":\"Imprisoned Pastor Dies in Custody - 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