Hanoi, May 7 (AFP) - Two Catholics were hurt in a mysterious motorbike accident on their way to the funeral of a Vietnamese communist Party veteran who had called for democratization, one of them said Thursday.

Father Chan Tin, of the Redemption convent of Ho Chi Minh City in the south, explained to AFP that he was riding on the motorbike with a friend on Monday to attend the funeral of Nguyen Van Tran, a veteran of the Party, when another motorcyclist caused an accident by kicking their handlebars.

His friend Nguyen Ngoc Lan was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured skull, while Tin was wounded in the leg and arm.

"Whether it was an assassination attempt or a threat, it seemed that they did not want us to attend the funeral", Tin said by phone from Ho Chi Minh-City.

The 78-year-old Catholic was held under house arrest between 1990 and 1993 for having asked the Vietnamese government to repent of its violations of human rights.

Nguyen Ngoc Lan, a former member of the same congregation, was also held under house arrest during the same period.

Veteran Nguyen Van Tran, also called Bay Tran, died on May 1st aged 84. He led the insurrection in Saigon in August 1945 and was responsible for security forces in Nam Bo (southern Vietnam).

But Tran had been close to being expelled from the communist party a few years ago for having published, despite censorship, a 500-page book called "Writing for my Mother and for the National Assembly" in which he called for democratic reforms in Vietnam.

The Vietnam Communist Party sent low-ranking representatives to the funeral while the Saigon press announced his death in a very brief message. The Saigon Giai Phong still referred to him as "comrade".

"I was a very close friend of Tran", Father Tin said adding that "we shared the same opinions, we fought for human rights and democracy and the party did not like that".

Father Tin stressed that he was still under pressure from the authorities and his activities were restricted.

The Redemption convent is a Catholic congregation which settled in Vietnam in 1925.