HANOI (Reuters) - Communist Vietnam said on Monday it has refused permission for a European Parliament team to visit a Buddhist monk held under house arrest, and urged the European Union not to let the issue of religious freedom cloud relations.
The European Parliament passed a resolution last year calling for the release of all religious prisoners in Vietnam, and sent a delegation of parliamentarians to Hanoi this week to discuss human rights with officials and to meet detained religious leaders.
But Vietnam said it had barred access to one of the country's most prominent detainees, Thich Quang Do, the deputy leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.
"The delegation's proposal to meet (Thich Quang Do) cannot be realised now because he is subject to the settlement of Vietnamese laws," Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement.
"We hope that the delegation understands Vietnam's point of view on this issue and (we) don't think that this should affect the developing relations between Vietnam and the European Parliament and the European Union."
Do has been under house arrest since June 2001, when he planned to lead a mission to take the church's elderly patriarch Thich Huyen Quang from detention in central Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City for medical treatment.
The Vietnamese government says it respects religious freedom. It recognises six religious groups but bans several groups it regards as sects.