Hanoi (dpa, Dec 8) - Vietnam on Thursday lashed out at an international report criticizing the lack of press freedoms in the communist state, at the same time Catholic leaders were complaining of censorship.
A release on the website of Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) took Hanoi to task for "controlling the press with an iron hand" and refusing to license publications to opposition groups.
"Such remarks by Reporters Sans Frontiers demonstrate that they do not know anything about the recent developments in Vietnam," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Sy Vuong Ha.
"Fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and press are respected and exercised as stipulated in the Vietnamese constitution," Ha added.
Vietnam's media is tightly controlled by the state, with leaders routinely reminding editors that their role is to promote socialism.
The response came amid the recent dissemination of a report by a Catholic priest complaining that the publication of an underground church bulletin had been stopped by authorities.
In a 10-point statement faxed to the foreign media Thursday and dated November 24, Reverend Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly, of the Hue Catholic diocese in central Vietnam, said the publication of Ban Tin Hiep Thong (Communion Bulletin), had been stopped.
The Catholic church, one of Vietnam's six officially recognized religions, has unsuccessfully lobbied for permission to print the bulletin, what Ly described as "the sole official voice of the Vietnam Archbishop Council."
The first six issues of the bulletin, beginning in February, were printed in secret, he said.
"When will we have the right of freedom of opinion, freedom to express our faith, freedom to preach the Gospel and the Truth?" Ly wrote.
Ly's document was sent through the Free Vietnam Alliance, an anti-communist overseas Vietnamese group based in the United States.
Also on Thursday, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released its own 2001 world report which criticized Vietnam for continued repression.
"The 25th anniversary of Vietnam's reunification (after the Vietnam War) saw the government maintaining tight control over freedom of expression and other basic rights," the report said.