Vietnam's government denounced an annual US State Department report that criticized the state of human rights in the South-East Asian country, local media reported Friday.
"We reject the biased remarks based on erroneous information about Vietnam that is contained in the US Department of State's 2008 report," Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Le Dung said, according to dpa.
As in past years, the State Department's 2008 Human Rights Report, released Wednesday, accused Vietnam of infringing on human rights in numerous areas. The report said Vietnam had imprisoned independent political activists, limited the freedom of bloggers to air their views on the internet, and fired and prosecuted journalists who reported on government corruption.
The report also praised Vietnam for making progress in some areas, particularly religious freedom.
Dung said the Vietnamese state respects freedom and human rights but "also fights against the misuse of these rights to undermine state interests and the rights and legal interests of organizations and individuals."
In recent years, journalists and democracy activists in Vietnam have been sentenced to jail terms under a Vietnamese law that bars "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens."
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