Despite a marked increase in religious practice among the Vietnamese people in the last 10 years, the Vietnamese government continues to suppress organized religious activities forcefully and to monitor and control religious communities. The government prohibits religious activity by those not affiliated with one of the six officially recognized religious organizations. Individuals have been detained, fined, imprisoned, and kept under close surveillance by security forces for engaging in "illegal" religious activities. In addition, the government uses the recognition process to monitor and control officially sanctioned religious groups: restricting the procurement and distribution of religious literature, controlling religious training, and interfering with the selection of religious leaders. 1. The U.S. Congress should ratify the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) only after it passes a sense of the Congress resolution calling for the Vietnamese government to make substantial improvements in the protection of religious freedom or after the Vietnamese government undertakes obligations to the United States to make such improvements. Substantial improvements should be measured by the following standards: 1. 1.1. Release from imprisonment, detention, house arrest, or intimidating surveillance persons who are so restricted due to their religious identities or activities. 2. 1.2. Permit unhindered access to religious leaders by U.S. diplomatic personnel and government officials, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and respected international human rights organizations, including, if requested, a return visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. 3. 1.3. Establish the freedom to engage in religious activities (including the freedom for religious groups to govern themselves and select their leaders, worship publicly, express and advocate religious beliefs, and distribute religious literature) outside state-controlled religious organizations and eliminate controls on the activities of officially registered organizations. Allow indigenous religious communities to conduct educational, charitable, and humanitarian activities. 4. 1.4. Permit religious groups to gather for annual observances of primary religious holidays. 5. 1.5. Return confiscated religious properties. 6. 1.6. Permit domestic Vietnamese religious organizations and individuals to interact with foreign organizations and individuals. 2. If Congress ratifies the BTA and approves conditional Normal Trade Relations status for Vietnam, it should review Vietnam’s progress on the protection of religious freedom as part of an annual review of that status. 3. The United States should withhold its support for International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank loans to Vietnam (except those providing for basic human needs) until the government of Vietnam agrees to make substantial improvements in the protection of religious freedom, as measured by the standards itemized in 1.1 through 1.6 above. 4. The U.S. government should make the protection of religious freedom a high-priority issue in its bilateral relations with Vietnam, including in the annual human rights dialogue with the Vietnamese government and in future trade negotiations, advocating substaRecommendations