Hanoi, Vietnam - Police in the central Vietnamese city of Danang have charged six villagers who participated in an unauthorized Catholic funeral with public disorder, police and local sources said Tuesday.
The charges stem from a May 4 clash between police and Catholic parishioners trying to perform a burial in a cemetery that authorities have closed and slated for a tourism development.
The clash is the latest in a series of recent land disputes between Vietnamese government agencies and Catholic churches and parishioners.
Five of the villagers charged are in detention while one has been released on bail after police said he made a "sincere statement."
Authorities barred further burials as of April 20 at the traditional Catholic cemetery in the village of Con Dau in the Cam Le district just south of Danang. The area has been condemned for a 400-hectare ecotourism development by the local Mat Troi (Sun) Co, a local police officer said.
The mainly Catholic villagers have refused to accept the compensation the government offered or to move the tombs to another cemetery the government has designated 20 kilometres away.
When an 82-year-old woman died May 1, having asked to be buried in the local cemetery next to her husband, the parish priest and other villagers attempted to perform the burial in violation of police warnings.
Police blocked the cemetery with steel netting and arrested 60 to 70 villagers, of whom six have been charged with causing public disorder and interfering with officials. Cam Le District Police Chief Nguyen Van Tien said police were considering further charges for damaging police vehicles.
Under Vietnamese law, the charges are punishable by up to two years in prison.
At a May 6 press briefing in Hanoi, Vietnamese government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga called press reports of the clash "a fabrication created with the ill intent of slandering Vietnam."
In January, Catholics in the village of Dong Chiem outside Hanoi clashed with authorities who removed a hilltop cross they had erected at a disused cemetery. In 2008, Catholics held prayer vigils and protests over land parcels in Hanoi the church said were illegally seized from it by the Communist authorities.
Vietnam has South-East Asia's second-largest Catholic community after the Philippines with at least 6 million followers.