Angry Catholics in clashes with police (HongKong Standard)

HANOI: Several thousand Roman Catholic demonstrators clashed with police over the weekend in Dong Nai province, where the authorities have confiscated church land to construct public buildings, government officials said on Monday.

Four demonstrators and one policeman were injured in the clashes at a protest against the land-expropriation policy, according to residents of the coastal province _ about 40 kilometres northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

An official of the People's Committee in Thong Nhat district, where there are thousands of Catholics, said the disturbances started after police started breaking up demonstrations.

``Several thousand demonstrators were protesting against corruption and expropriations of diocese land that the local authorities ordered for the construction of schools and public buildings,'' he said.

A local Catholic said around 10,000 Catholics, mostly women, took part in the demonstration in front of the headquarters of the district People's Committee to protest against the expropriations. They also demanded that corrupt officials be put on trial.

Police and officials at the province's Commission of Religious Affairs refused to confirm or deny the incident, which appears similar to unprecedented clashes in Thai Binh province in May and June.

In the weekend's reported unrest, demonstrators were demanding the return of confiscated land in the diocese of Tra Co, where authorities have already taken possession of 3,200 square metres of church land to build a market.

Officials planned to seize a further 12,000 square metres of land, the source said, adding that police only managed to disperse the angry crowd when the local bishop, Nguyen Minh Nhat, called on demonstrators to halt their protest.

The province is home to numerous Catholics, some who fled North Vietnam in 1954, the year the country was partitioned, and others who settled in the south after the communist victory in 1975._ AFP