Members of the a congressional human rights commission want the State Department to reinstate Vietnam as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) after hearing testimony Wednesday on the lack of religious freedom in the Communist-controlled country.
“I fear that when the U.S. granted Vietnam normal trade relations in 2001, we lost crucial leverage that puts pressure on the Vietnamese government to improve a very poor record on human rights,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said at the hearing. “Over the last year, we’ve seen Vietnam’s record on human rights and religious freedom take a turn for the worse.”
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