To win support for Diệm, Madame Nhu hit upon the idea of enlisting support from the million or so refugees from North Vietnam, many of them Catholics who fled to the south after the Geneva accords had partitioned Vietnam, organizing them for a massive pro-Diệm demonstration on 21 September 1954. The rally in Saigon led to a confrontation on the streets between Madame Nhu and Bình Xuyên gunmen, with Nhu daring the thugs to kill her right then and there, which caused them to demur, and the rally went on. Emboldened by this triumph, Diệm saw a chance to put his puritanical Roman Catholic values into practice and to strike a blow at the Bình Xuyên at the same time by shutting down the brothels, gambling houses and opium dens of Saigon owned by the Bình Xuyên while having pornographic magazines burned on the streets (the Bình Xuyên were the largest producers and sellers of pornography in Vietnam).