Nine hurt as Cambodian monk protest turns ugly [- Poor cops! They beat the monks and they got injured instead?]

Kampuchea Krom Buddhist monks clash with riot police during a protest near the Vietnam embassy in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh December 17, 2007. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Mon Dec 17, 2007

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Three Cambodian Buddhist monks and six riot police were hurt on Monday in a fight that broke out when the monks tried to deliver a protest letter to the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, officials and witnesses said.

About 40 saffron-robed monks were trying to demand Vietnam stop persecuting Buddhists. When their path was blocked, they started throwing bottles and hitting the 100 riot police positioned near the embassy compound.

The riot police, who were not armed, chased the monks away with electric batons.

One of the marchers, 20-year-old Thach Many, accused police of overreacting. "We just wanted to deliver a protest petition," he told Reuters.

The petition urged Vietnam to free a jailed Cambodian monk called Tim Sakhorn, release five others disrobed by Hanoi early this year and respect the religious rights of the ethnic Cambodian minority in Vietnam's Mekong delta area.

Tim Sakhorn, 39, was defrocked in June and sentenced to a year in jail in Vietnam on charges of upsetting Cambodia-Vietnam relations.

Police accused the monks of staging an illegal and violent protest.

"Monks hid stones in their bags and hit police, injuring them in the arms and legs," said police chief Touch Naroth.

Nobody at the Vietnamese embassy was immediately available for comment.

Dalai Lama: "...beating a monk is very bad"

Khmer Krom monk injured during a peaceful anti-Vietnamese demonstration in Phnom Penh

Tue Oct 16, 2007
Myanmar's beating of monks "very bad": Dalai Lama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama said on Tuesday the Myanmar junta's beating of protesting Buddhist monks was "very bad" and reminded him of China's treatment of Tibetans.

The exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, in Washington to receive a Congressional award that has angered China, said he had expressed to U.S. President George W. Bush gratitude to First Lady Laura Bush for championing democracy in Myanmar.

"When I saw the picture of (a) Burmese monk, like the Tibetan monk, like myself," the Dalai Lama told reporters, pausing as he pointed to his maroon robes and shaved head.

"That reflects beating by Chinese (of) Tibetan monks -- very similar -- so therefore, naturally, I felt some very, very strong sort of feeling."

President Bush met with the Dalai Lama on Tuesday despite China's warning that U.S. plans to honor the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could damage relations between Beijing and Washington.

Long before protests in Myanmar first flared in August, Laura Bush made public calls for the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and called on the United Nations to take up the Myanmar issue.

At least 10 people were killed and many more arrested during the suppression last month of the pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks. Myanmar police are still raiding homes and arresting activists.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, following a harsh Chinese crackdown in Tibet.

Suu Kyi received the Nobel prize in 1991 and fellow Nobel laureates have repeatedly urged the country's military rulers to release her from years of confinement.

The Dalai Lama said he had made an "expression of my solidarity with the demonstrators" and also told the Myanmar junta to tread lightly with fellow Buddhists.

"The junta, they are also Buddhists, so logically they should follow Buddhist teachings: non-violence or compassion -- and beating a monk is very bad," he said.