ShareCourtesy: MSN News

A deadline for followers of one of the world's most influential Buddhist monks to leave their Vietnam monastery appears to have passed peacefully and they remain in place, a community member said Thursday.

State-linked religious authorities had given about 400 monks loyal to Thich Nhat Hanh until Wednesday to leave the monastery in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, but they had refused to go and hoped to find a solution.

"They still carry out their religious activities and so far there have been no signs of a siege," Hong Kong-based Thich Phap Kham, a founder of the Bat Nha community, said after talking to the monks on Wednesday.

"We are not against the government. We just want to practise there," Kham, 47, said of the Bat Nha monastery.

Many of Hanh's followers at the compound remain without electricity and running water after power was deliberately cut, added Kham, an American citizen of Vietnamese descent who said he helped to establish the group four years ago.

Hanh is a French-based Zen monk and peace activist who was a confidant of slain US civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

In 1966 the then-South Vietnamese regime forced Hanh into exile but he returned to visit his unified homeland in 2005 and 2007.

The problems for Hanh's followers began about a year ago when the top monk at the Bat Nha monastery, Thich Duc Nghi, told them they were no longer welcome.

Nghi is linked to the Vietnamese Buddhist Church, which is sanctioned by the communist state.

A government spokesman earlier said Hanh's followers at Bat Nha had organised courses in Buddhism without permission and said power was cut because the monks did not pay their bills.

The spokesman said the monks would be "moved to another spot" if they did not leave after three months ending September 2.

Local officials could not be reached on Thursday.

The monks also alleged they were assaulted about two months ago by a mob demanding they leave.

Hong Kong-based Kham said the central authorities did not want the group's following to spread. "Why does the government fear someone doing good things ?" he added.