Police
will pursue charges in a case involving seven people accused of causing
public disorder at a war vestige site in the central province of Quang
Binh .
Major
General Hoang Cong Tu, Deputy General Director of the General Security
Department under the Ministry of Public Security, made public the
decision at a meeting held at the office of the Ministry of Information
and Communication on July 28.
He
said that the original charges, filed by police in Dong Hoi city, Quang
Binh province, followed the arrest of seven for allegedly causing
public disorder at the Tam Toa historic war relic, and that the arrest
was conducted in accordance with law.
Those
arrested, mostly Quang Binh residents, have confessed their guilt and
pleaded for clemency, police said. They have also acknowledged several
others, including Father Le Thanh Hong and Vo Thi Thu Thuy, 52,
involved in instigating the illegal building of a house on the site.
Police
said that at 4am on July 20, over 200 Catholics, mostly from districts
in Quang Binh province and some from northern Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa
provinces, who are working in Quang Binh, illegally built housing at
the site of the Tam Toa historic war vestige without the local
administration’s permission.
The
house was rapidly dismantled that same morning. There was a brief
scuffle when some radicals attacked non-Catholic locals and police with
stones and sticks.
In
recent days, several priests from the Xa Doai Church in the central
province of Nghe An alleged that Dong Hoi police had beaten Catholics.
They incited fellow followers from surrounding churches to flock to
Dong Hoi city for prayers to protest against police. They also called
for the release of those arrested for violating law and that the
ownership of the Tam Toa historic war relic be given to their church.
A
document sent by Father Pham Dinh Phung, Head of the Xa Doai Church
Office, acting on behalf of the church, conveying these allegations and
demands to the Quang Binh People’s Committee, was a total distortion,
said police.
The
Tam Toa church was built in Dong Hoi in 1886. It was almost totally
destroyed by US bombings on Feb. 11, 1965, leaving just a bell tower on
the site, scarred by shells.
According
to the people’s aspirations, the Quang Binh People’s Committee on
February 26, 1997, issued a decision to turn the bell tower of the Tam
Toa Church into a historical relic site, to be preserved to remind the
people of war crimes against the country.
(Source:VNA)
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