Sri Lankan police blocked the Vietnamese monk Thich Minh on Thursday, Thich Minh kills to continue his barefoot trip around the Southern Asian Island until he changed his visa, a witness on Radio Free Asia said.
Thirty police officers went down to Tue and his group of 37 monks when they had finished eating and prepared from Narammala, a city about 40 miles (65 kilometers) in the northeast of the capital Colombo.
“They agitated a document sent from Vietnam, declaring that this group was not a group of real monks, so walking like this was contrary to the laws of the host country,” said Vietnamese filmmaker Nguyen Minh Chi, who witnessed the incident, told to the RFA.
It came two days after a local monk, claiming to be Sri Lankan Sangha sriddhist, brandishing the same document, had tried to harm the group to stop in a Hindu temple.
Thich Minh kills became an unlikely internet sensation last year in Vietnam, where his simple lifestyle touched a sensitive string. He undertook barefoot walks that have become viral and the sympathizers came out en masse.
Last December, he left Vietnam on a trip to India, the birthplace of Buddhism. After crossing Laos, he entered Thailand with a plan to browse myanmar exhausted in conflict, but encountered problems with logistics and visa. He has since went to Malaysia and a week ago arrived in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist nation. He always hopes to go to India.
But his international wanderings have gradually become more troubled – apparently reflecting the suspicion with which he is considered by the authorities at home in Communist Vietnam where religion is closely regulated.
The document sent from Vietnam and presented by Sri Lankan police, according to Nguyen Minh Chi, is the letter signed by Thich Nhat Tu, a main representative of the Vietnamese Sangha supported by the State – or Buddhist religious association – which was revealed earlier this week.
The letter, of which a copy was seen by RFA, accuses Thich Minh kills to pretend to be a Buddhist monk, trying to establish a dissident sect and threaten public order and national reputation.
According to Chi, the Sri Lankan police were polite and respectful. They asked the monks to change their visas from those of tourists to those of pilgrims, to suit the objective of the trip.
The Vietnamese was then placed on two different buses, one for the monks and one for the volunteers and the Youtubers, and taken to a pagoda in the neighboring city of Alawwa, said Chi.
The monks have been informed that they would not be allowed to travel on foot until their visas has been changed, he said.