Hanoi  - Some 300 Vietnamese devotees of a Western-based Buddhist sage remained camped out on the floor at a nearby pagoda Monday after police drove them from their monastery last week.

The monks and nuns, followers of the Western-based Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, were evicted from Bat Nha monastery in the province of Bao Loc on September 27 after a year-long conflict with local authorities.

Supporters of Hanh said the monks were being harassed for their association with him, after he reportedly called for Vietnam to end government restrictions on religion during a meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in 2007.

The episode has raised concerns that Vietnamese government restrictions on religion, which have been eased in recent years, may be tightening again.

Officials at Vietnam's Government Committee for Religion declined Monday to provide an explanation for the evictions at Bat Nha.

Police smashed doors and windows of dormitories at Bat Nha, arresting several monks and confiscating others' belongings. The rest of the monks and nuns dispersed, with the largest group moving to Phuoc Hue Temple, some 17 kilometres away.

Two nuns currently taking refuge at Phuoc Hue, who asked that their names not be used, said by telephone that the group was sleeping on the pagoda's floor, and that sympathetic local believers had provided them with food and some blankets.

One of the nuns said plainclothes police came to Phuoc Hue every day to pressure them.

"They are trying to convince us to return to our home villages to continue our practice," one of the nuns said. "But we know if we listen to them, when return, we will not be allowed to practice. They will put us under house arrest."

Another nun said two Buddhist believers who arrived at the temple Monday morning to offer support were led away by local authorities.

The evictions were the climax of a year-long conflict between the abbot of the Bat Nha monastery, Thich Duc Nghi, and Hanh's followers. The abbot initially welcomed Hanh's followers when they asked to set up their group inside his monastery in 2005, but last year began collaborating with local authorities to force them out.

All religious organizations must register with the government in Vietnam, and only the official Vietnam Buddhist Sangha has state approval.

Hanh first gained notoriety as a leader of South Vietnam's anti-war Buddhist Movement in the early 1960s, and remained in the West after the South Vietnamese government exiled him in 1965. He has tens of thousands of followers at residential meditating communities in France and the United States, and his spiritual and self-help books have sold millions of copies.

Hanh received state approval to return to Vietnam several times during 2005-07, where he gave lectures on Buddhism attended by crowds of thousands.

In early September, local authorities issued a memo saying Hanh's followers at Bat Nha had "abused the religious policies of the party and state to sabotage the regime and oppose the Buddhist Church of Vietnam." Authorities cut off water and electricity to the group's buildings in June.

Last week Hanh sent a letter to Triet asking him to halt the police's actions against the monks at Phuoc Hue, which "go against the time-honoured mores and precepts of our people." (dpa)