HANOI - Communist Vietnam described a U.S. hearing on religious rights due to take place on Tuesday as a "rude intervention" in Vietnam's internal affairs aimed at discrediting the country.
The Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan (the People) said the hearing, held by the U.S. commission on international religious freedom, violated principles of equality, friendship and sovereignty governing relations between the United States and Vietnam.
"People who understand clearly the religious situation in Vietnam consider this a discordant fanfare played by some hostile forces in order to distort and dishonour the bright image of Vietnam," the official paper said.
"We have many times clearly stated that there is nobody arrested in Vietnam because of religion or their beliefs.
"The fact some Buddhists and followers of other religions have been detained is because they committed offences against Vietnamese law and should be dealt with under the law."
The report said those who fabricated religious issues and tried to politicise and internationalise them were doomed to "humiliating failure."
"People of morality who respect the truth will reject this ill-intentioned work and protest against this rude intervention into the sovereignty and internal affairs of Vietnam."
MEETING TO DISCUSS SANCTIONS
The hearing, due to start in Washington later on Tuesday, will consider whether sanctions should be used to push Vietnam to show greater respect for religious rights and to assess what effect granting Normal Trade Relations status would have.
NTR status, renewable annually, is provided for under a landmark bilateral trade accord signed by Washington and Hanoi last year but still to be ratified by the U.S. Congress and Vietnam's National Assembly.
The Washington hearing comes hard on the heels of the worst unrest to hit Vietnam for years, involving mainly Protestant ethnic minority hill farmers in the central highlands.
While religious rights in Vietnam have improved gradually, the country is still regularly criticised by rights groups for restricting worship, especially by such minority Christians, who fought alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
Religion has been a prominent issue in recent weeks.
In early February, Thich Quang Do, a 73-year-old dissident Buddhist monk, accused the authorities of harassing and detaining him and subjecting him and a group of followers to a humiliating strip search after they visited the detained heard of their outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.
Diplomats believe such incidents will have raised concern in the United States, not sufficient to derail the trade agreement given its broad, bipartisan support, but perhaps sufficient to slow its passage through Congress.
Vietnam has gained some points by moving to recognise the southern branch of the Protestant Evangelical Church, which held its first conference since the Vietnam War last week.
Hanoi currently recognises six religious groups, but not included are the country's countless small Protestant "house" churches which the government sees as subversive but have significant backing in the United States.
02:58 02-13-01
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