LifeAs anti-coup protests continue, where are Myanmar's monks?
Ignoring history, some prominent Buddhist clergy have sided with the military
A Buddhist monk protests the arrest of Wirathu, an ultranationalist monk who has been accused of conspiring to persecute Muslims, in Yangon in January. Even well before the coup, the military and some racist monks were tapping into a latent xenophobic strain among the country’s mainly Buddhist ethnic Burman majority to target Muslims and other minorities. © AP
DENIS D. GRAY, Contributing writer
August 28, 2021 08:00 JST
CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- In the days following Myanmar's Feb. 1 coup, social media abounded with scenes of angry protesters and brutal security forces. Among them were pictures of Buddhist monks, often standing silently with candles or marching with placards denouncing the military.