Hat-tip to Dr. Paul Fuller for this one: The Phnom Penh Post has a new piece about Cambodian Buddhist monks participating in protests this week, and puts them into larger perspective as well.
Here’s a snippet:
In demonstrations at Freedom Park in central Phnom Penh this week, Buddhist monks have been ever present. They have been at the forefront of calls to remove the barbed-wire barriers and open the area again to freedom of expression and opposition to the government.
They have also taken a leading role in a number of protests in the past year, from supporting workers’ strikes for more pay in the garment and service sectors to backing residents and institutions displaced by land grabs.
“We don’t want the regime to control the people. We want the people to control the regime,” said But Buntenh, founder of the Independent Monk Network for Social Justice, a group at the forefront of anti-government protests. “Whoever are the justice lovers, we will side with them.”
You can read the rest here.
I’ve previously blogged about “Cambodia’s marching monks” here, and posted about a documentary film-in-progress about them as well.