Monk flees pagoda over fears of arrest

The venerable monk Loun Souvath sits with residents of the Boeung Kak lake area during a demonstration outside City Hall earlier this month in Phnom Penh. Loun Souvath has been forced into hiding. (Photo by: Will Baxter)

Tuesday, 29 March 2011
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

A monk at Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh on Monday fled the pagoda out of fear of arrest by authorities for his participation in protests held by Boeung Kak lakeside residents and villagers embroiled in a land dispute in Chi Kraeng commune.

The venerable Luon Savath, ordained in 1990, went into hiding after returning from a protest in front of City Hall at the weekend, he said yesterday, adding that police have threatened him with arrest on four previous occasions over his involvement in protests.

“The authorities have not only warned me that they would arrest me, but have tried to get me defrocked by calling me a fake monk who violates Buddhist rules of conduct,” he said.

A strange thing happened along Hun Sen's path to the inauguration of the Chinese-funded Prek Kdam bridge construction

Only in Cambodia will you see this: A Buddhist nun forced to wave a flag of the communist and atheist People's Republic of China.

Cambodian nuns hold Cambodian and Chinese national flags to keep cold from the sun light at a ceremony to inaugurate construction of a Chinese-funded bridge at Prek Kdam village, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, June 11, 2007. Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday angrily called as 'irresponsible and unacceptable' recent comments by a Thai army general accusing Cambodian Muslims of being linked to the regional Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group and joining insurgents in southern Thailand. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)