HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam on Wednesday rejected a human rights report documenting torture and repression of ethnic minority people in its Central Highlands region as blatantly distorted.
A statement from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said the report released by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday was a "sheer fabrication" that did not correspond with the reality witnessed by independent observers who had visited the region.
She said the government had worked hard over the years to improve conditions for ethnic minority people there.
"Human Rights Watch will never persuade anyone with such a blatantly distorted report, only tarnish its own image," she said.
In the 200-page report, the New York-based rights group said torture, arbitrary arrests and church burnings were among the weapons used by Vietnam against ethnic minority dissent.
It accused Hanoi, and neighbouring Cambodia -- which has sealed its border to fleeing hilltribes people -- of violating international agreements on human rights and refugee asylum.
Hanoi sent in thousands of police and troops to put down ethnic minority protests over land rights and religious freedoms in the Central Highlands that broke out early last year, prompting more than 1,500 to flee to Cambodia.
Human Rights Watch said that in the Vietnamese crackdown, hundreds of protesters and Christian religious leaders were rounded up and detained without trial, and torture -- including kicking, beating and electric shocks -- was used to elicit confessions.
It called on Vietnam to open the region to human rights monitors, journalists and diplomats, and to address the underlying grievances fuelling the unrest.
Vietnam, which routinely denies charges of rights violations, has allowed only limited access to the highlands for diplomats and journalists since the unrest broke out. Rights groups are barred.
Last month Cambodia bowed to mounting international pressure by agreeing to allow the resettlement of 905 refugees from the highlands in the United States.
Human Rights Watch says about 500 refugees have been forcibly repatriated from Cambodia in the past year.