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| US lawmakers criticise Vietnam on religious rights |
| 20-AUG-2010 Intellasia | The Canadian Press |
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| 20 Aug, 2010 - 7:00:00 AM |
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Republican lawmakers and activists on Wednesday called on the Obama administration to put Vietnam back on a US religious freedoms blacklist.
Reps. Frank Wolf and Chris Smith also said at a hearing that the US State Department should avoid deepening ties with the economically vibrant Southeast Asian nation until human rights improve.
The Bush administration handed Hanoi a major concession in 2006 when it removed Vietnam from a list of countries the United States considers guilty of severe violations of religious freedoms.
The Obama administration has also sought to strengthen ties and is pursuing negotiations with Vietnam on a civilian nuclear cooperation deal.
The lawmakers criticised Vietnam for an alleged violent crackdown on Catholics involved in a land dispute with the government. Smith said Catholics were attacked by Vietnamese police during a funeral procession.
"The sad reality is that the Vietnamese government persecutes any religious group that does not submit to government control," Smith said at a hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
The United States has tried to balance criticism of Vietnam's human rights record with support and engagement as the countries' trade has increased exponentially since relations were normalised in 1995.
Last month, during a visit to Vietnam, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "profound differences exist" between the countries over human rights. She said the former US enemy is "on the path to becoming a great nation with an unlimited potential." But, she said, to fulfil that promise the government must ease curbs on free speech and political activity.
Vietnam tolerates no challenges to communist one-party rule and has arrested or sentenced pro-democracy activists and dissident Roman Catholics to prison time. Hanoi insists that only lawbreakers are jailed.
Theodore Van Der Meid, with the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, testified Wednesday that U.S-Vietnamese cooperation on economic matters "should not come at the price of human rights abuses, harassment and death."
Van Der Meid said that Vietnam's previous presence on the US religious freedoms blacklist "produced tangible improvements on the ground and did not hinder progress on bilateral issues."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100818/world/us_us_vietnam_human_rights_1
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