Communist Vietnam has rejected charges by Amnesty International that its Central Highlands minority population is being repressed.
The December 18 report by the group said the Montagnard group, many of whom are Protestant Christians, had faced "systematic repression" since protests over land rights and religious freedom erupted in February 2001.
Amnesty also charged Hanoi with cordoning off the province, which produces a majority of Vietnam's coffee, and persecuting those the government believes are responsible for the unrest.
At a regular press briefing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said the report was a "blatant distortion".
"We resolutely reject this report," she said.
Asked if Vietnam would agree to a recommendation by Amnesty that security forces operating in the Central Highlands be open to monitoring, Thanh said the area was "open to all people of goodwill and who possess an objective perspective of Vietnam".
But she added: "Vietnam is a sovereign state. We need no one to come to monitor the situation in our country."
Hanoi sent in thousands of troops to quell the unrest last year and access to the province by media, diplomats and international agencies is controlled and visits are supervised.
During last week's annual gathering of international donors, several groups raised the issue of human rights in Vietnam. The United States said too little progress had been made in the past year.
Thanh told reporters that the province was enjoying robust economic growth of over 10 percent, stronger than the rest of the country. Poverty had been reduced and the literacy rate was over 90 percent, she said.
"My question is: Would there be such development if the population there were so repressed?" she asked.