By Paul Wiseman and D.K. Ngo, USA TODAY
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - The communist government of Vietnam insists that it keeps no political prisoners and describes itself as a "shining example of human rights protection."
Tran Huu Duyen, 80, sees things differently.
"They talk about freedom and democracy, but things are different from what they say," he says. "We are constantly harassed and thrown in jail."
Tran speaks from experience. As a leader of a Buddhist group suppressed by the government, he's spent 17 years in prison off and on since the communists took over Vietnam in 1975. He was last released two years ago after an international lobbying campaign was staged on his behalf.
The pressure was on the Hanoi government again as President Clinton arrived for a historic visit Thursday. Human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers have urged Clinton to call on the Vietnamese government to allow more political dissent and religious freedom.
Clinton is expected to bring human rights up privately in meetings with Vietnamese leaders, but to avoid a public confrontation over the issue.
Economically, Vietnam has been opening up. The streets of this city, formerly Saigon, bustle with free-market activity: Vendors hawk everything from motorcycle parts to tacky Buddha statuettes. A stock market opened in July.
Politically, however, the country remains in a Leninist time warp. The government controlled by a small group of aging Marxist ideologues still hails the "dictatorship of the proletariat," vows to keep Vietnam on the socialist road, silences dissent and harasses religious groups it sees as a threat .
Still, human rights groups give the government some credit. Vietnam isn't as repressive as it used to be. Thousands of people who were imprisoned or sent to "re-education" camps after the communist takeover in 1975 have been released in recent years.
Vietnam has signed the United Nations convention on human rights and "has shown some willingness to cooperate with the United Nations on human rights issues," according to a Human Rights Watch statement last week.
The government has even allowed quiet protests in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Perhaps 100 people have set up tents next to a Toyota dealership and across from government offices on LeDuan Street, one of the city's main boulevards. They have come from the countryside demanding money for land the local government took from them.
"Hear our grievances," says one banner. "Compensate us now," demands another. Police stand by without interfering. One even expresses sympathy for the protesters. But limits remain:
Government officials can arrest without a warrant people they deem a threat to security - a way to silence political dissidents. One intellectual was placed under house arrest this spring and threatened with a charge of treason, apparently for joining other dissidents who planned to write a letter calling for more democracy. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based activist group, says that 100 people were in jail at mid year on charges of endangering national security.
Press censorship remains tight. The government has refused to allow the publication of independent newspapers and magazines. Three months ago, it announced plans to impose new regulations on the press, threatening to fine those who possessed material that "distorted Vietnam's history or defamed its national heroes." Foreign reporters have been arrested after meeting with political dissidents.
Although the protest on LeDuan Street is tolerated, taking photographs of it is not. When two reporters stopped to snap a photo of the tent village this week, security officials confiscated their camera and took it to a nearby Fuji film shop to have the offending photo developed and removed.
Vietnam bans or harasses religious groups it sees as threats. The government restricts the number of Roman Catholic parishes and screens priests and bishops.
Among religious groups targeted is Tran Huu Duyen's Hoa Hao Buddhist church, which is strong among rice farmers in the Mekong Delta and has a history of political activism. The group was involved in resistance against French colonists decades ago and tried unsuccessfully to establish a political party under the authoritarian South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1960.
The group says it faces constant harassment: Four Hoa Hao followers were sentenced to prison in May for disturbing the peace; five more were sentenced in September for "defaming the government" and "abusing democracy."
The Vietnamese campaign against Hoa Hao is similar to the Chinese communist government's crackdown on the quasi-Buddhist group Falun Gong. Both attract members from the peasants and workers who are supposed to be the backbone of the communist government. Both are seen as a threat to political stability.
As Vietnam opens up to the outside world and a growing economy creates a middle class, the communist government is sure to come under increasing pressure to loosen its grip on political power.
That is one reason it has been slow to approve economic reforms, which can bring outside influences into the country.
Tran Huu Duyen, for one, is not about to give up the fight for freedom. "If I'm afraid of going to jail, then nothing will get done. Heaven will give me strength."