The European Parliament Thursday attacked a crackdown on dissident religious groups in Vietnam and demanded the EU get tough with the communist-run country.
Members of the European Union assembly passed a resolution "strongly condemning the new and more serious wave of repression" of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) and Christian Montagnards.
The resolution came after the US House of Representatives on Wednesday also called for greater religious freedom in Vietnam and offered encouragement to its dissident Buddhist clergy.
The MEPs demanded EU member states raise the case of detained UBCV followers with the Vietnamese authorities, "and to co-ordinate their efforts to promote this (religious) freedom in a concrete manner."
They also called for the European Parliament to appoint a delegation to visit Vietnam to review religious freedoms and to meet UBCV leaders including Thich Huyen Quang.
The 85-year-old patriarch of the UBCV has been under effective house arrest for 21 years in an isolated area of central Vietnam.
The communist authorities in Vietnam have been cracking down on the UBCV in recent months as well as on Christians who refuse to come under the roof of the authorised Catholic Church.