Vietnamese Benedictines demand end to ‘terrorism’

Protesters disrupt the Benedictine monks during prayer at the disputed area on August 11 (UCA News)

Protesters disrupt the Benedictine monks during prayer at the disputed area on August 11 (UCA News)

Benedictine monks in central Vietnam have called on government-led “land grabbers” to end their “acts of terrorism” against them. Source: UCA News.

UCA News, August 17, 2020

The monks accused the Thua Thien Hue provincial government of organising and sponsoring a group of 40 land grabbers to penetrate their monastery on August 11-12 while local people were taking social distancing measures to stem the COVID-19 pandemic.

They said protesters with placards and leaflets “threatened and terrorised us and vilified our monastic life”.

They said they had identified those who led the attackers as officials from the People’s Committee of Thuy Bang Commune and security officers who had broken into the monastery on August 10.

The Benedictines said the assailants used loudspeakers to slander the Church as they did in June 2017 when they smashed the crucified statue on a cross and brutally beat many monks.

The monks said the provincial government’s constant violent acts “go against civilised behaviour and treat Catholics like hostile forces in order to remove them out of social activities in the province”.

“In God’s love, we wish those individuals and agencies to behave well and respect basic human rights and dignity by law,” Fr Andrew Thong Nguyen Van Tam, superior of Thien An Monastery, said in a press release on Friday.

Fr Tam asked them to immediately end gathering security officers and people to terrorise the monastery and disrespecting the monks’ dignity and honour.

He also urged foreign diplomats, rights groups and people of other faiths to take necessary measures to protect the monks’ reason, interests and truth.