HANOI, June 6 (AFP) - Vietnam Wednesday rejected US protests over the detention of a leading dissident, alleging "evil forces" were seeking to abuse the row to block ratification of a landmark trade agreement.
Police blocked a member of the European Parliament from staging a protest against the Buddhist monk's detention inside the Ho Chi Minh City pagoda where he is held, aides told AFP.
But the house arrest of former Nobel peace prize nominee Thich Quang Do was "an internal matter for Vietnam," foreign ministry spokesman Le Sy Vuong Ha said.
"Any outside interference in Vietnam's domestic affairs is unacceptable."
The official has insisted there is nothing new about the house arrest order against Do, which he said had remained in force ever since his release from jail three years ago.
However, he offered no explanation of why the Buddhist monk had previously been able to move around relatively freely, making trips to both the Mekong Delta and central Vietnam in the past year.
The US State Department Monday condemned Vietnam's communist authorities for placing the deputy leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam under two years' house arrest late last week.
The furore over Do's renewed detention came as the White House prepares to submit last July's trade agreement to Congress for ratification, seeking to turn a page on relations fraught since the Vietnam War.
On Tuesday, a US government-appointed panel on religious freedom urged Congress to pass a resolution critical of Vietnam's human rights record before ratifying the historic trade pact between Washington and Hanoi.
Members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom warned in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that religious repression in Vietnam was getting worse.
Vietnam's official police daily, Cong An Nhan Dan (People's Police), accused "evil forces" in the United States of deliberately exploiting the issue to rally opposition to the trade deal.
"Evil forces in the United States are using the pretext of human rights violations in Vietnam to mount a frantic campaign to try to block ratification of the trade agreement but they can't hide the truth," the paper said in an editorial.
"We reject these ill-intentioned allegations," it said, lashing back at "American violations of human rights both in the United States and around the world."
Italian MEP Olivier Dupuis had planned to barricade himself inside the Thanh Minh Zen pagoda in a show of support for the detained monk, according to a statement by his Transnational Radical Party.
He succeeded in entering the building despite a uniformed police presence outside but plainclothes officers stopped him gaining access to an upper floor where Do is held, aide Martin Schulthes told AFP.
Dupuis then spent an hour inside the pagoda waiting for an opportunity to dodge the police guard before being asked to leave.
The European parliamentarian was now considering how to continue his campaign for the release of Do and other Vietnamese religious dissidents, Schulthes said.
In April, another member of the European Parliament, Lars Rise of the Norwegian opposition Christian People's Party, was detained then deported from Vietnam after visiting religious dissidents, including Do.