DONG TAM, Vietnam — Residents of Dong Tam, a village on the outskirts of Vietnam’s capital, have been holding hostages for nearly a week to protest a government attempt to evict villagers from disputed land. The standoff has riveted a nation where farmers’ land is often taken from them for development.

Some of the more than three dozen officials and police officers taken hostage last weekend were later released, but others were still being held in Dong Tam on Friday, according to rights activists and state news outlets. Residents had erected barbed-wire barricades to block access to a part of the village where the hostages were said to be held.

The episode has developed into one of the more dramatic confrontations in recent years between ordinary Vietnamese and their authoritarian government. The top city official in Hanoi, the capital, was expected to meet with villagers on Friday. State-run news outlets reported that officials had promised to review the underlying reasons for the land dispute, and to refrain from using violence.

A blogger near Dong Tam who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said people simply wanted to return to normal life.