Eleven Christians have been arrested for holding religious services on Christmas day in the southern Laotian province of Attapeu, a Paris-based exile group claims.
The Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) say they were arrested on December 27 and 28 according to "reliable informations".
More than 10 other Christians are currently sought by the police in the same province for organizing Christmas prayer meetings, the statement added.
The LHMR gives the names of six Christians allegedly arrested last Saturday in Kang village, in the Sanamsay district, "simply for having prayed together", adding another man was arrested in Somsouk village.
Four others were detained in separate villages in the same district the following day.
"After having been conducted to the district then to the provincial Religious Affairs Office, the 11 Christians, mostly from the Khmu and Oey ethnic minorities, were imprisoned and their Bibles confiscated," the statement said.
The LMHR, which frequently accuses the communist regime of harassing Christians, denounced "the double language" of the Lao leaders "who keep on denying all human rights violations by the regime while using religious freedom as a currency exchange and a strategy to obtain international assistance."
No official sources were immediately available for comment in Vientiane.
However, the Lao government has repeatedly insisted that it guarantees the right to freedom of religion and non-religion. It has accused the LMHR of trying to portray it in a bad light to influence US legislators debating whether to grant Laos normal trade relations.