Hanoi, Nov. 4, 1998 (AFP) - Vietnam slammed the US Wednesday for a new law requiring the president to impose sanctions on nations that fail to meet Washington's religious freedom standards.

"With this new law on religion, one has the impression that American lawmakers intend to make laws for the entire world," the official army newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan said in a stinging commentary.

"They impose themselves the laws and criteria of 'liberty' and then apply sanctions ... one can only express a single word on this law: it is shocking," the commentary said.

Wednesday's commentary comes one week after the departure of UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance Abdelfattah Amor whose 10-day visit was plagued with obstacles thrown up by Vietnamese officials.

Amor expressed his frustration with interference from Hanoi after having been prevented from meeting Catholic and Buddhist dissidents and other religious officials.

Hanoi, which consistently denies any dissidents are under detention, declared the visit a success, during which Amor saw "with his own eyes, religious freedoms in action."

The US Congress adopted the International Religious Freedoms Act in October which calls on the president to employ a range of economic and diplomatic sanctions against countries which violate religious freedoms.

According to the Nhan Dan, President Bill Clinton signed the bill because of pressure surrounding his affair with Monica Lewinsky, giving into intense lobbying from "certain US religious organizations."

The new law could aggravate tensions between Hanoi and Washington as the United States often points the finger at the Communist regime for its treatment of political and religious dissidents, many of whom are in prison or under house surveillance.