E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.2 page 10 34. The new official policy on religion is aimed not at eliminating religion, but at introducing tolerance, mainly in the form of greater freedom of worship, but also at placing limits on the authorities’ power to interfere in religious affairs. 35. The following are the main instruments used to exercise control over religions: (a) Legislation (primarily the Code of Criminal Procedure and Decree No. CP/31); (b) Administrative machinery for managing religious affairs: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) A State organ, the Office of Religious Affairs, with headquarters in Hanoi and local branch offices; The Department for the Mobilization of the Masses, which advises the Communist Party on the strategies and policies to be used for providing the people with ideological support; The Party Front, consisting of the Communist Party’s general machinery for exercising control over intellectuals and organizations; The Ministry of the Interior, which cooperates closely with the above-mentioned bodies and is responsible for surveillance and infiltration of places of worship and religious organizations, through the security services. (c) The development of State religious structures with the aim of making religions a support for policy; (d) A three-tiered monitoring system: (i) (ii) Sector policeman: officer responsible for exercising control over the people, empowered both to make arrests in the absence of a judge, in particular on grounds of illegal association (whenever three persons from another sector are found together in the same dwelling) and to issue and revoke residence permits; Residence permit: administrative document containing essential information (including religious and political data) describing the citizen, drawn up by the sector policeman and indispensable for administrative formalities, for access to employment, school, health care, etc. In practice, sector policemen are said to have the power to issue and revoke this document and thus to have excessive power over individuals;