assembly, and freedom of association. Recent US reports maintain the same observations and international human rights organizations that share these views include Human Rights Watch and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. The United Nations has highlighted religious persecution. In 2009, the European Parliament expressed concern about "the growing climate of intolerance in Vietnam towards human rights defenders and members of officially unrecognized religious communities." It called on the government to end repression against freedom of expression, belief, and assembly, and to release its "political prisoners". The government officially provides for freedom of religion and recognizes Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Hòa Hảo, Cao Đài, and Muslim denominations. However, the government supervises the clergies of the sanctioned groups (by approving appointments, for example) in the interest of "national unity". Freedom of expression remains a problem as the Vietnamese authorities continue to use tough national security laws to punish critics of the regime. The official media remained tightly controlled by government censorship and obstruction. Restrictions on the freedom to assemble remain a problem in Vietnam. There is an effort of the government to delay issuing a law for legalizing demonstration/strike although demonstration is legal as written in Vietnam's Constitution. As of 2017, Vietnam held over 100 political prisoners for the crime of criticizing the government or participating in religions, protests, activism, or political parties not sanctioned by the government. According to Human Rights Watch, the government of Vietnam has increased its crackdown on dissidents, human rights activists and independent journalists, ahead of the 13th party congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam that took place in January 2021. The court has also increased the prison time for dissidents serving detention. On 23 December 2021, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) condemned the conviction and long-term sentencing of four prominent human rights defenders and journalists in Vietnam. The sentences against Do Nam Truong, Trinh Ba Phoung, Nguyen Thi Tam and Pham Doan Trang stemmed from their continuous advocacy and reporting on human rights in Viet Nam. Current human-rights related dissidents In 2009, Le Cong Dinh, a lawyer who several years previously had acted for the government in a successful case against American catfish farmers, was arrested and charged with the capital crime of subversion; several of his associates were also arrested. Many Western governments condemned the move, and human rights groups alleged that the arrest was due to