However, a "recent crackdown on civil society, increased pressure on independent religious communities, alarming reports of forced renunciations of faith, and other growing religious freedom violations add up to a clear reversal in that once-positive trajectory," it said. Vietnam's requirement for religious groups to register contrasted with Hanoi's obligation to provide religious freedom to all its people, it said. "Government authorities continue to closely monitor all religious activity, often harassing, detaining, or otherwise preventing unregistered faith communities from exercising their fundamental right to religious freedom," the report said. Last year, the U.S. State Department added Vietnam to its Special Watch List for violations of religious freedom under the 1998 U.S. Religious Freedom Act, a lesser designation than that of a CPC, but its first since 2006.

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Persons: Joe Biden, Frederick Davie, Eric Ueland, Biden, David Brunnstrom, Leslie Adler Organizations: U.S . Commission, USCIRF, Government, U.S . State Department, CPC, Thomson Locations: Vietnam, U.S, backsliding, Washington, Hanoi, China