While Vietnam had ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) which has provisions for religious freedom (Article 18),[53] and its own Constitution upholds religious freedom,[54] the U.S. State Department reported in its 2001 International Religious Freedom Report that the Vietnamese government "continued to restrict" certain organized activities of religious groups, noting that "many of these restrictive powers lie principally with provincial or city people's committees, and local treatment of religious persons varied widely."[55][56]