HANOI - TWENTY Catholics were detained by police in a violent dispute over church land in central Vietnam, a priest said Tuesday.
'They beat people. Some of them were bleeding,' Father Pham Dinh Phung said from Quang Binh province. 'We asked the authorities to immediately release those people that were arrested and bring the injured ones to hospital,' he said, adding they had received no response.
Police in Quang Binh could not be immediately reached for comment.
Phung said police arrived Monday shortly after 150 Catholics finished erecting a temporary building for worship at the site of Tam Toa church, which was bombed by US forces during the Vietnam War.
About 100 officers wanted to dismantle the structure but when the Catholics intervened 'police started beating them,' the priest said. He said Catholics had asked authorities' permission to rebuild the church because they had no building for worship and had held prayers outdoors.
'They said they wanted the land to be a historical war relic. We have asked them to give us another lot of land to build the church, but they haven't answered,' Phung said, maintaining the land belongs to the church.
The dispute is the latest in Vietnam between the authorities and Catholics. In the capital Hanoi in March, about 1,000 Catholics protested outside a Hanoi court that upheld the conviction of eight fellow believers for property damage and disturbing public order.
All had admitted taking part in rallies that peaked last August calling for the return of church property seized - along with many other buildings and farms - more than 50 years earlier when communists took power in what was then North Vietnam.
Vietnam has Southeast Asia's second largest Catholic community after the Philippines, with at least six million followers. Religious activity remains under state control, but Hanoi's relations with the Catholic Church had improved before the wave of property protests. -- AFP
'They beat people. Some of them were bleeding,' Father Pham Dinh Phung said from Quang Binh province. 'We asked the authorities to immediately release those people that were arrested and bring the injured ones to hospital,' he said, adding they had received no response.
Police in Quang Binh could not be immediately reached for comment.
Phung said police arrived Monday shortly after 150 Catholics finished erecting a temporary building for worship at the site of Tam Toa church, which was bombed by US forces during the Vietnam War.
About 100 officers wanted to dismantle the structure but when the Catholics intervened 'police started beating them,' the priest said. He said Catholics had asked authorities' permission to rebuild the church because they had no building for worship and had held prayers outdoors.
'They said they wanted the land to be a historical war relic. We have asked them to give us another lot of land to build the church, but they haven't answered,' Phung said, maintaining the land belongs to the church.
The dispute is the latest in Vietnam between the authorities and Catholics. In the capital Hanoi in March, about 1,000 Catholics protested outside a Hanoi court that upheld the conviction of eight fellow believers for property damage and disturbing public order.
All had admitted taking part in rallies that peaked last August calling for the return of church property seized - along with many other buildings and farms - more than 50 years earlier when communists took power in what was then North Vietnam.
Vietnam has Southeast Asia's second largest Catholic community after the Philippines, with at least six million followers. Religious activity remains under state control, but Hanoi's relations with the Catholic Church had improved before the wave of property protests. -- AFP