Source: The Star
Wire Service: Reuters
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Around 5,000 Buddhist monks and religious activists blocked traffic in front of Thailand's parliament on Monday, demanding Buddhism be declared the national religion in the new, post-coup constitution.
The protesters staged a one-day hunger strike to press the 100 members of the Constitutional Drafting Council, set up after the coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister last September, to give Buddhism special official status.
"We will fast and pray for all 100 members to respond to our demand," Thongchai Guasakul, the retired army general who led the rally, told reporters outside parliament.
Writers of the new charter, which will replace the 1997 "People's Constitution" torn up by the coup leaders, have previously rejected the demand, saying it would widen religious rifts especially in the violence-torn Muslim-majority far south.