Dili – Police in East Timor prevented about 200 people entering Dili late Monday to attend a demonstration in the capital called by supporters of the country's powerful Roman Catholic Church against a government trial to end compulsory religion classes in schools.

The group, including priests, nuns and seminary students, were traveling in a convoy of trucks and cars and were stopped from entering Dili at a police checkpoint 10 kms from the capital, said a senior police source, citing "orders from above" for the decision to stop the vehicles and their passengers entering the city.

Father Agostinho Jesus Soares, one of the coordinators of the planned protest, dubbed "peaceful demonstration", said the group were told by Timor's police chief, Superintendent Paulo Martins, they had been stopped from entering Dili as there could be people who wanted to cause "disrespect" among the group.

Tuesday's protest has been organized by supporters of Timor's Catholic Church, whose leaders have become embroiled in an increasingly bitter war of words in recent weeks with the Dili government.

The row intensified Monday with the church hierarchy accusing Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's cabinet of being secret Marxists who endanger democracy.

The Catholic Church's lastest blast against Dili's cabinet follows two months of mounting tensions that has seen the government accuse the church of making "bellicose declarations" and "unwanted interference" in politics.

The angry public exchanges first erupted over government plans to introduce a pilot program to demote religion classes in public schools to the status of an optional subject.

More recently the church has also strongly criticized the government for its decision to allow a bilateral Truth and Friendship Commission with Jakarta to deal with the sensitive issue of justice for Timorese victims of Indonesian atrocities committed around the time of the country's 1999 independence plebiscite.