page_title: Xá Lợi Pagoda raids
section_title: Huế
hierarchical_section_title: Xá Lợi Pagoda raids / Raids / Huế
caption_attribution_description: English: Tu Dam Pagoda, Hue, Vietnam Tiếng Việt: Chùa Từ Đàm, Huế, Việt Nam
context_page_description: The Xá Lợi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on 21 August 1963. The raids were executed by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tung, and combat police, both of which took their orders directly from Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother of the Roman Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm. Xá Lợi Pagoda, the largest pagoda in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, was the most prominent of the raided temples. Over 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, and estimates of the death toll and missing ranged up to the hundreds. In response to the Huế Vesak shootings and a ban on the Buddhist flag in early May, South Vietnam's Buddhist majority rose in widespread civil disobedience and protest against the religious bias and discrimination of the Catholic-dominated Diệm government. Buddhist temples in major cities, most prominently the Xá Lợi pagoda, became focal points for protesters and assembly points for Buddhist monks from rural areas.
context_section_description: The violence was worse in Huế, where the approach of government forces was met by the beating of Buddhist drums and cymbals to alert the populace. The townsfolk left their homes in the middle of the night in an attempt to defend the city's pagodas. At Từ Đàm, the temple of Buddhist protest leader Thích Trí Quang, monks attempted to burn the coffin of a monk who had self-immolated recently. Government soldiers, firing M1 rifles, overran the pagoda and confiscated the coffin. They demolished a statue of Gautama Buddha and looted and vandalized the pagoda. They then set off an explosion, leveling much of the pagoda. Many Buddhists were shot, beheaded, confiscated, and clubbed to death.
  The most determined resistance to the Diệm regime occurred outside the Diệu Đế Pagoda. As troops attempted to stretch a barbed wire barricade across a bridge leading to the pagoda, the crowd tore it down with their bare hands. The protesters fought the heavily armed military personnel with rocks, sticks and their bare fists, throwing back the tear gas grenades that were fired at them. After a five-hour battle, the military finally won control of the bridge by driving armored cars through the angry crowd at sunrise. The defense of the bridge and Diệu Đế left an estimated 30 dead and 200 wounded.
  Ten truckloads of bridge defenders were taken to jail and an estimated 500 people were arrested in the city. Seventeen of the 47 professors at Huế University, who had resigned earlier in the week in protest against the dismissal of the rector Cao Văn Luân, a Catholic priest and opponent of Archbishop Thục (elder brother of Diệm and Nhu) were also arrested. The raids were repeated in cities and towns across the country. The total number of dead and disappeared was never confirmed, but estimates range up to several hundred. At least 1,400 were arrested.
caption: Từ Đàm Pagoda
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