But the claim is a sham. All faiths here are routinely controlled, because the hardline Communist government fears religion is the only opponent effective enough to organize opposition to one of the world's most repressive regimes. The Communists are afraid there could be a change of regime. Like most other Protestant clergy in Vietnam, he has done hard time in the country's prisons, and doesn't want to be named.
Prison conditions remain harsh.
There were credible reports that security officials beat detainees. The government arbitrarily arrested and detained citizens, including detention for peaceful expression of religious and political views. That's just one of the dark sides of a regime that will put its best face forward tomorrow in celebrations of the reunification of South and North Vietnam. Believers here, whether they are Buddhist, Roman Catholic or Protestant, are regularly imprisoned, beaten and sometimes killed simply for worshipping together and proclaiming their faith to others. The growing number of Western tourists seldom sees this brutal side of Vietnam except when it hits the headlines, as it did this week with the execution by firing squad of Nguyen Thi Hiep, a Vietnamese-Canadian woman accused of smuggling heroin.