Bangkok: Vietnamese officials have imposed strict conditions on Western correspondents covering US President Barack Obama's visit to their communist country.
BBC correspondent Jonathan Head was told his crew's accreditation had been withdrawn and his reporting of the visit must stop after Mr Obama arrived in Hanoi on Sunday night.
Head, who is based in Bangkok, said no reason was given but in a fraught exchange with foreign ministry officials it was suggested he had held an unauthorised meeting after he arrived in the country on Friday.
"This is clearly untrue – our minder knows we were at another approved meeting at the time – but they are unwilling to withdraw the accusation," he said.
Our US embassy attaché in WH press van spent half the trip on cell protesting w/Vietnamese over attempts to expel BBC journalist.— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) May 22, 2016
Foreign journalists working on assignments in Vietnam must be accompanied by a Vietnamese official and all interviews and filming must receive prior approval.
Head said he was initially told that all he could report during Mr Obama's three days visit was the President's schedule and one interview with an officially-sanctioned academic.
He said even pointing a camera vaguely in the direction of an election poster was "politely blocked by our minders."
A large group of US correspondents has been granted visas to report on Mr Obama's first visit to the country and the third by a US president since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975.
US officials have insisted that any decision on Mr Obama easing or lifting a wartime arms embargo imposed on Vietnam will be tied to improvements from Hanoi on its human rights record.
Human rights groups say that repression on freedoms in Vietnam has exacerbated this year with social media bloggers routinely harassed and detained on vaguely-defined charges of spreading propaganda against the state.
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested in recent weeks during street protests calling for tougher environmental safeguards after millions nof dead fish washed up near a Taiwanese-owned industrial complex.
