Catholic protesters press on for fifth day

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Hanoi
About 30 Roman Catholics in southern Vietnam staged a fifth day of protests on Wednesday against the confiscation of Church property after weekend clashes with police, Catholic sources said.

Between 20 and 30 protestors, most of them woman, brandished banners in front of the local People's Committee in Thong Nhat district of Dong Nai province.

''The demonstrators are there this morning hoping to receive an official response to their complaints,'' the source said.

Five people were said to have been injured at the weekend when more than 10,000 Catholic demonstrators clashed with police in the district about 40 kilometres northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

However, Vietnam's foreign ministry denied on Wednesday any connection between religion and the incident.

"This concerns a civil dispute on land use in a locality which has no links to religious problems," the ministry said in response to written questions submitted by AFP.

"According to our information, the situation has returned to normal, and is not at all as it has been reported by the foreign press," it added.

The disturbance coincides with the release Tuesday of a report from Human Rights Watch/Asia which said that Vietnam was increasing internal repression and seeking to stifle the press.

Vietnam has repeatedly rejected claims by human rights groups, and refused to issue a specific reaction to the latest report.

The protests come against the backdrop of increasing restrictions on the activities of Catholics in Dong Nai province, who make up most of its two million people.

In April, the province issued a directive severely curtailing Catholic activities and called for the disbanding of several ''illegal'' Catholic organisations.

''Each parish is only allowed to have activities that accompany religious rituals, such as bands of horns and drums and the non-periodic, non-organised activity for old men and women above 65 to hold group praying for the sick and the dead,'' the directive said. ''All remaining groups, age groups and other forms of association are illegal and must disband themselves.''

Although the Church is officially recognised, all its activities are tightly controlled by the Fatherland Front, the arm of the Communist Party overseeing all social organisations.

Hanoi insists on vetting all Papal appointments, and severely restricts the number of young men who can be trained in the seminary.

About a quarter of all Vietnamese dioceses have no bishops, and the Church must obtain permission from the government before building or altering structures.

The weekend clashes in Dong Nai followed protests by thousands of Catholics against a local seizure of Church land.

Local authorities were in touch with central police in Hanoi and were believed to be searching for protest leaders, the Catholic source said.

On Tuesday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch/Asia released a report which said Vietnam was increasing internal repression and seeking to stifle the press.

Vietnam has repeated rejected all claims by human rights groups.

Police have refused to comment on the Dong Nai incident since troubles first began over the weekend.

During the melee demonstrators were said to have burned down the home of a religious affairs official of the Fatherland Front.

An official from Thong Nhat district said "the situation has become calm and the incident has been settled."

Spontaneous protests in Vietnam are extremely rare in Vietnam, and even more rarely are they ever reported in the Vietnamese media, all of which is state-controlled.

There has been no mention of the Dong Nai protests in the Vietnamese press while police declined to confirm or deny the existence of any problems.