HANOI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Vietnam said on Thursday it had deported two Germans who tried to bring banned materials into the country.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh told a news conference Uwe Lehmann and Detlef Bursch left on Saturday, a day after they arrived in Hanoi on a flight from Dubai.
An official of the German embassy in Hanoi said the two, from the Berlin area, had been trying to enter Vietnam with religious and anti-communist books and pamphlets.
Thanh said customs officers at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport found the two with a "great quantity of materials" banned by Vietnam's import regulations and they were asked not to enter the country.
She said they had signed documents admitting the violation and breaching the terms of their visas.
Vietnam's communist government does not tolerate political opposition and is at odds with religious dissidents from various churches. It denies restricting political or religious rights.
In May Vietnam deported a European parliamentarian, Olivier Dupuis of the Transnational Radical Party, after he attempted to meet a detained Buddhist dissident.
Dupuis, a Belgian, is now being detained by Vietnam's neighbour and communist ally Laos after he and four other democracy activists staged a protest in the capital Vientiane last month.
In April, Vietnam deported Lars Rise, a member of the Norwegian parliament, after he met dissidents while in the country on a tourist visa.
The European Commission's Director General for External Relations Guy Legras said in Hanoi on Tuesday there had been some improvement in human rights conditions in Vietnam in recent years but the country still had a long way to go to improve its record.