HANOI - VIETNAMESE police have ordered Catholics occupying a plot of disputed land in the capital to leave or face possible criminal charges, state media said on Thursday.

Hundreds of Vietnamese Catholics erected statues and crosses two weeks ago on the Hanoi site, which is owned by a garment company but which protesters argue is church land.

'Such behaviours have violated the law and show signs of breaching some articles of the Penal Code,' Mr Vu Cong Long, head of Hanoi's Dong Da district police, was quoted as saying by the police-run An Ninh Thu Do (Capital Security) newspaper.

On Wednesday night state-run television showed pictures of people using hoes and hammers to break what it said was a section of the brick wall surrounding the yard, claimed by the Thai Ha Church.

A similar dispute late last year saw hundreds of people attending prayer vigils in Hanoi to press for the return of another piece of land they said was seized 50 years ago.

Public displays of criticism or disagreement with the ruling Communist Party are rare, but over the past decade peasant farmers have also challenged the government over land use.

Religion remains under state supervision in the mostly Buddhist country even though Vietnam has the second largest Catholic community in South-east Asia after the Philippines, with about six million among the 86.5 million population.

The Hanoi government is working toward establishing formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited the Pope there a year ago. -- REUTERS