{"id":49058,"date":"2024-03-30T05:12:48","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T12:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/vietnamese-police-arrest-4-more-khmer-krom-monks-in-pagoda-dispute\/"},"modified":"2024-03-30T05:12:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T12:12:48","slug":"vietnamese-police-arrest-4-more-khmer-krom-monks-in-pagoda-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/vietnamese-police-arrest-4-more-khmer-krom-monks-in-pagoda-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnamese police arrest 4 more Khmer Krom monks in pagoda dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vietnamese police have arrested four more Buddhist monks from the Khmer Krom indigenous group in an ongoing clash over a pagoda in the country\u2019s south.<\/span><\/p>\n

Authorities in Vinh Long province also arrested an activist during a raid on Thursday at Dai Tho Pagoda, known as the Tro Nom Sek pagoda in Khmer, <\/span>police said in a statement<\/span><\/a> posted on Facebook.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The nearly 1.3-million strong Khmer Krom indigenous community live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia. They face discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s raid comes two days after Vietnamese <\/span>police arrested the head of the pagoda<\/span><\/a>, Thach Chanh Da Ra, and two other followers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The dispute with local authorities stems from an incident last November when Thach Chanh Da Ra and others wouldn\u2019t allow a task force from the Tam Binh District People\u2019s Committee to enter the pagoda.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thach Chanh Da Ra is accused of filming their visit to \u201cdefame local authorities and divide national unity.\u201d He was dismissed from the government-recognized Vietnam Buddhist Sangha <\/span>in December<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vietnamese police arrested activist Thach Nha. (Soc Trang province police via Facebook)<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Thach Chanh Da Ra and follower Kim Khiem were accused of posting slandering and insulting videos on social media and charged with \u201cabusing the rights to democratic freedom,\u201d in violation of Article 331, a law that rights groups have said is vaguely written and often used to stifle dissent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Police also arrested Thach Ve Sanal, another member of the pagoda, on charges of \u201cillegally arresting, holding, or detaining people,\u201d for his alleged role in the November incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cell phones seized<\/p>\n

The five men arrested on Thursday were also being detained on suspicion of \u201cabusing the rights to democratic freedom\u201d under Article 331, police said.<\/span><\/p>\n

A monk who witnessed the arrests told Radio Free Asia that about 10 police officers entered the pagoda, defrocked the four monks and arrested them and the one activist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By Buddhist law, monks can only be defrocked by senior monks if they breach Buddhist law \u2013 not by police.<\/span><\/p>\n

When other monks tried to prevent the arrests, the officers responded with violence and confiscated everyone\u2019s cell phones, the witness said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe persecution is brutal,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is against our tradition and it is inhuman.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation condemned Thursday\u2019s arrests, saying in a statement that \u201cthe actions of the Vietnamese authorities against these revered spiritual leaders and their supporters are a flagrant violation of fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of religion, expression and association.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Translated by Anna Vu and Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.<\/p>\n

RFA Khmer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tin t\u1eeb RFA Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vietnamese police have arrested four more Buddhist monks from the Khmer Krom indigenous group in an ongoing clash over a pagoda in the country\u2019s south. Authorities in Vinh Long province also arrested an activist during a raid on Thursday at Dai Tho Pagoda, known as the Tro Nom Sek pagoda in Khmer, police said in …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":49059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,239],"tags":[246,251],"class_list":["post-49058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-vietnam","tag-english","tag-rfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}