Laos. Authorities in some areas continued to display intolerance for minority religions, particularly Protestant denominations. There were reports of local officials pressuring minority Christians to renounce their faith on threat of arrest or forceful eviction from their villages. There were also several instances of persons detained or arrested for their religious faith in Savannakhet and Attapeu provinces. There were two known religious prisoners, both members of the Lao Evangelical Church, the country's domestic Protestant Christian church. Although in theory the Prime Minister's Decree on Religious Practice provides a mechanism for new religious denominations to register, the Government's desire to consolidate religious practice for control purposes has effectively blocked registration of new denominations. Persons arrested for their religious activities have been charged with exaggerated security or other criminal offenses. Persons detained may be held for lengthy periods without trial, and an accused person's defense rights are limited. A person arrested or convicted for religious offenses has little protection under the law.

North Korea. Genuine religious freedom does not exist, and particularly severe violations of religious freedom continued. The regime has severely repressed unauthorized religious groups in recent years; there are unconfirmed reports of the killing of members of underground Christian churches. In addition, religious persons who proselytize or who have ties to overseas evangelical groups operating in the People's Republic of China appear subject to arrest and harsh penalties, according to several unconfirmed reports. Defectors interviewed by a former humanitarian aid worker claimed that Christians were imprisoned and tortured for reading the Bible and talking about God and that some Christians were subjected to biological warfare experiments. The Government effectively bars outside observers from confirming these reports.

Vietnam. Respect for religious freedom remained poor or deteriorated for some groups, notably ethnic minority Protestants and some independent Buddhists, though it slightly improved for many practitioners. The Government continued to restrict significantly those publicly organized activities of religious groups that were not recognized by the Government. Oversight of recognized religions and harassment of followers of non-recognized religions varied from locality to locality, often as a result of varying local interpretations of national policy. Religious groups faced restrictions on training and ordaining clergy and on conducting educational and humanitarian activities. There have been credible reports for several years that local officials have continued to pressure many ethnic minority Protestants to recant their faith. According to credible reports, the police arbitrarily detained and sometimes beat religious believers, particularly in the mountainous ethnic minority areas. During the period covered by this report, one Protestant leader in the Northwest Highlands was reportedly beaten to death for refusing to recant his faith. In October 2003, authorities detained ten leaders of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, including two who had been freed from detention a few months earlier, after they held an organizational meeting without government permission in Binh Dinh Province. In 2003 the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and Government moved more formally to recognize and more fully to support the role of "legal" religious activity in society. At the same time, the CPV cited the overriding importance of "national unity" to assert more explicitly its control over religious groups.