Author:
Publication: Zenit.org
Date: February 13, 2001
Vietnam said that deliberate attempts
were being made to undermine rapprochement with the United States, ahead
of U.S. hearings on religious freedom in this Southeast Asian country,
BBC reported today.
Vietnam has described the upcoming
hearings in Washington, D.C., as a rude and "gross interference" in its
internal affairs, which was being used to smear the country's name, BBC
said.
The Communist Party newspaper Nhan
Dan said nobody was arrested in Vietnam because of their religious beliefs.
It said some Buddhists and followers of others religions had been detained,
but only because they broke the law.
The hearings come hard on the heels
of the worst unrest to hit Vietnam for years, involving mainly Protestant
ethnic minority hill farmers in the central highlands.
The hearings by the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedoms -- due to open Wednesday -- will hear
evidence from various witnesses, including exiled Vietnamese dissidents.
They come shortly before Congress
is due to decide whether to ratify the bilateral trade agreement signed
last year.
BBC's Hanoi correspondent said Vietnam
now recognizes six religious groups, but organizations which lack official
acceptance face sustained harassment.
Last September, the U.S. State Department
published a report accusing the Vietnamese authorities of arbitrarily detaining
some believers, such as Buddhists and Protestants.
Last week, just ahead of the hearings,
the communist authorities finally moved to recognize the country's largest
Protestant church, the Evangelical Union of Vietnam.
Last week, Vietnamese troops and
riot police moved into the country's central highlands to quell protests
by ethnic minority hill farmers.
Among the issues that sparked the
protests was the government's repression of fringe Protestant churches,
which have attracted many followers from ethnic minorities in recent years
The protesters key issue was the
government turning the hill tribes' ancestral forests into the country's
largest coffee-growing region, which has brought in lowland Vietnamese.
