Vietnam on Friday
accused two elderly leaders from a banned Buddhist sect of transporting state
secrets, two days after a support group alleged the monks were in a standoff
with police after being surrounded near a monastery.
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, 86, and deputy
director Thich Quang Do,
74, were on their way to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday
when they were pulled over by traffic police, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le
Dung said in a statement.
The police "discovered Mr. Quang Do and Mr. Huyen Quang carrying some
evidence of their wrongful activities, including some documents classified as
state secrets," he said.
Do, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was sent to his monastery in Ho Chi Minh City, while Quang returned
to Binh Dinh province, 650
kilometers (400 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City, the
statement said.
Dung said no charges have been filed and "how the incident will be handled
depends on the result of the investigation and the attitudes of the two."
The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau alleged police held
the two for four hours before releasing them. The bureau on Wednesday alleged
security police surrounded a minivan the two were riding in just after leaving Quang's monastery. They were allowed to pass hours later
after a crowd of local Buddhists protested, the group said.
Dung has denied a standoff occurred and accused the bureau of trying to
undermine Vietnam's communist government.
The church, which has refused to accept Hanoi's control, has been outlawed
since 1981 after the communists defeated the U.S.-supported government of South
Vietnam in 1975. Instead, the government recognizes the state-sanctioned
Buddhist Church of Vietnam.
Quang and Do have each spent more than 20 years in
jail or under house arrest.