Hanoi, Vietnam - Vietnam on Tuesday welcomed a US State Department decision to remove it from a list of countries that persecute people for their religion, a move that was decried by some religious groups. A banned Buddhist sect and a Protestant Christian group charged Tuesday that Vietnam continues to persecute the leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and to discourage minority evangelical churches in the northern and central highlands.
Vietnamese government spokesman Le Dung praised the country's removal from the US list of "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC) on religious freedom, which includes Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.
"It is a right decision that accurately reflects reality in Vietnam," Le Dung said in a statement. "Vietnam's consistent policy is to respect and guarantee the right to freedom of belief and religion and the right to freedom of non-belief."
Vietnam was added to the CPC list in 2004 and is the first country ever to be removed from it. Eritrea, Myanmar and Sudan remained on the list and Uzbekistan was added to it in a sign of worsening relations between the United States and the Central Asian country.
Vietnam last year passed laws outlining ways for unofficial churches - the communist-run country insists all churches be regulated by the state - to gain legal status and has begun registering some Protestant "house churches," though hundreds remain officially illegal.
John Hanford, the US ambassador at large, said Monday in Washington that Vietnam had made significant improvements on religious freedom.
"Though important work remains to be done, Vietnam can no longer be identified as a severe violator of religious freedom" under US law, Hanford said.
Hanford mentioned the Unified Buddhist church, but said the group's leaders were targeted because they "expressed political views that the government finds threatening." However, Vo Van Ai, a Paris-based spokesman for the Unified Buddhists, said that continued police restrictions on head monks Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do are proof the sect is still targeted.
Thich Quang Do, who remains under police supervision in a Ho Chi Minh City pagoda, has in the past called for independent elections in Vietnam, but Ai said they are merely calling for the government to remain outside of religious affairs.
"By repeating Hanoi's 'political' perceptions against the UBCV, Ambassador Hanford is unwittingly encouraging Vietnam in its policies of suppressing all independent religious voice in Vietnam," Ai said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a London-based group that has connections with minority evangelical Protestant churches, released a document Tuesday that it said was a training manual for communist officials to discourage the fast growth of evangelicalism.
The document informs communist officials that Vietnamese citizens have the right to worship in their homes but CSW says that it also gives local officials instructions to discourage new converts, saying to "hold your ground and mobilize and persuade the people to return to their traditional [animist] beliefs."
A CSW spokesman in London said the documents provide a loophole to continue state suppression of the estimated 600,000 Protestant believers in the country.
"While the Vietnamese government is presenting one face to the outside world, the reality of religious repression is still very much there," he said.
The US decision on Vietnam's religious freedom classification comes days before President George W Bush, a committed Protestant Christian, is due to arrive in Hanoi for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.
Bush is expected to attend an inter-faith service in Hanoi while visiting Vietnam.