Newsweek: The Silence of the Monks
International Edition
The Silence of the Monks
Paula Bronstein / Getty Images
Burma’s rebellious holy men are now off the street, out of sight. Tales of collaboration and ‘monastery arrest’ from inside the closed regime.
4:16 PM ET November 24, 2007
The 26-year-old monk was one of thousands who took to Burma’s streets in late September. Like so many of them, he had never imagined himself an activist—”I’m a normal monk, not a political monk,” he says—but he was carried away by the democratic fervor then sweeping Rangoon. On Sept. 25 he returned to his monastery late at night, climbing over the back wall since the front entrance was locked. The next night the soldiers came and took him away.
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