The 2007 Burmese anti-government protests were a series of anti-government protests that started in Burma (also known as Union of Myanmar) on August 15, 2007. The immediate cause of the protests was mainly the unannounced decision of the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council, to remove fuel subsidies which caused the price of diesel and petrol to suddenly rise as much as 100%, and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase fivefold in less than a week.
On September 22, around two thousand monks marched through Yangon and ten thousand through Mandalay, with other demonstrations in five townships across Myanmar. Those marching through the capital chanted the “Metta Sutta” (the Buddha’s words on loving kindness) marching through a barricade on the street in front of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Although still under house arrest, Suu Kyi made a brief public appearance at the gate of her residence to accept the blessings of the Buddhist monks.[28] In Mandalay, estimated to have 200 monasteries, monks were said to have told people not to join the protests, which ended peacefully.
On September 23, 150 nuns joined the protests in Yangon. On that day, some 15,000 Buddhist monks and laymen marched through the streets of Yangon in the sixth day of escalating peaceful protests against the Burmese military regime. The Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks vowed to continue the protests until the Burmese military junta is deposed.
After that point, it gets bad. Just reading up on this, my sister-in-law’s flying out there to rejoin a monastery on Monday. The internet’s pretty blocked out there, so it might be a while before we hear a report from her.
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