At the meeting

Joining the event included the meeting were Chairman of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs (GCRA) Vũ Hoài Bắc, Vice Chairman of the GCRA Nguyễn Tiến Trọng, and Ambassador of the United States of America to Vietnam Marc E.Knapper.

At the meeting, the two sides had exchanges on the religious life in Vietnam, clarifying issues of mutual concern in the spirit of openness and respect for each other’s political institutions, contributing to promoting the relation between the two countries.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng speaks at the meeting

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng highlighted that  the Vietnamese State’s consistent policy is to respect and protect everyone’s right to freedom of belief and religion, ensure equality of religions, and promote fine values and resources of religious organizations for the national development.

The Law on Belief and Religion 2016 enacted suiting with the reality of the belief and religious life in Vietnam, and the international conventions, has been uniformly implemented nationwide and created a strong legal framework to better ensure everyone’s right to freedom of belief and religion.

Deputy Minister highlighted that since the implementation of the Law on Belief and Religion 2016, there have been four religious organizations recognized, one organization granted with the registration certificate for religious operation, and three religious training schools established. In addition, thousands of Vietnamese religious groups and over 60 religious groups of foreigners were granted with registration of religious practices; over 70 religious worshipping places granted with land use rights certificates; religious scriptures published in 21 ethnic languages; and 4,418 copies of 17 religious related titles brought into the libraries of 54 prisons.

Vietnamese delegation at the meeting

Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng proposed that the two sides continue to maintain channels of exchange and dialogue on religious freedom in the coming time, and asked the U.S. Department of State early remove Vietnam from the special watch list on religious freedom (SWL).

U.S. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Allison Peters speaks at the event

U.S. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Allison Peters extended congratulations to Vietnam on the occasion of the 79^th anniversary of Independent Day on September 2^nd. She highly appreciated Vietnam’s efforts in ensuring people’s religious freedom over the last years and welcomed opportunities for information exchange in order to enhance mutual understanding, contributing to promote religious freedom and human rights globally.

She informed that the U.S. State Department has had written exchanges with the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington on proposals to promote exchange and cooperation between the two countries on religious freedom. She highlighted recommendations made by the U.S. State Department based on the principle of respect for Vietnam’s independence and sovereignty as well as the desire to deeply strengthen the comprehensive strategic partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam.

U.S. delegation at the event

At the meeting, the U.S. representative raised a number of issues of concern to the U.S. State Department in its annual international religious freedom reports, and affirmed the goal of the visit is to exchange information and coordinated methods to achieve progress in human rights cooperation in general and religious freedom in particular, opening up opportunities to share each country’s experiences for promoting the mutual understanding between the two countries.

Posing for group photo

NL