BANGKOK Thailand AP Two Christians who were arrested at a prayer meeting in the capital of Laos have been released after spending 10 months in jail the U.S.-based missionary group with which they are affiliated announced Tuesday. Eight other Laotians arrested at the meeting remain in prison after having been convicted of engaging in antisocial activities a spokesman for the Little Rock Arkansas-based group Partners in Progress said by e-mail. The 13 were among 44 people arrested Jan. 30 at a private residence in Vientiane the capital of the Southeast Asian nation. Those originally arrested included three U.S. citizens a French woman and a Thai preacher all of whom were released and expelled after being held for four nights. Twenty-six Laotians were also released without being charged with any crime. Three elderly women who were convicted were released after serving two months in prison. Partners in Progress spokesman Jerry Canfield identified the two persons released from That Dom prison late last week as Miss Duangmanee Yilatchay 20 and Khammieng also 20. Duangmanee was the last female among the Christians still being held. Canfield speculated that she received a longer jail term than the other women because she had taught Bible classes to the children of the congregation. Khammieng is a farmer from a village several miles kilometers outside the capital. Both had been given one-year sentences which were reduced to ten months by the Lao Supreme Court said Canfield who expressed pleasure they had been released several days earlier than expected. The eight remaining prisoners had originally been given three-year sentences and the Supreme Court reduced the jail terms of seven of them to two years and that of the eighth to two-and-a-half years he said. Partners in Progress is a humanitarian evangelical organization based in Little Rock Arkansas with activities worldwide. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The group has been working in Laos since 1993 providing medical aid assistance in sanitation and clean water supplies for rural schools and English-language instruction for medical personnel. The arrests drew concern from international human rights groups and the U.S. Embassy which regarded the detentions as an infringement of religious freedom. The case has been an irritant in U.S.-Lao relations and some diplomats believe it may have kept Laos from being granted most-favored nation trading status by Washington. In February in the only extended public comment on the case so far from the Laotian government the official Laotian news agency KPL published what was described as a clarification of the case by the Foreign Ministry. The statement said the prayer meeting breached a law providing that ``an individual who organizes or takes part in a meeting to create social turmoil will be sentenced to one to five years imprisonment.'' It also cited a constitutional ban on ``all acts of religious discrimination and all acts to cleave a wedge among people.'' It said that ``both foreign and Lao nationals who took part in the meeting made use of religious practice as a pretext for their propaganda activity. However the gathering was to slander the Lao leaders.'' The annual human rights report of the U.S. State Department this year said Laos' constitution allows religious freedom but ``in practice the government continues to restrict freedom of religion especially for some Christian denominations.'' APW19981201.0043.txt.body.html APW19981201.1092.txt.body.html