Monasteries raided on Sino-Burmese border

Myo Gyi
Mizzima News (www.mizzima.com)

October 18, 2007 - In the unabated crackdown on monks, a local police team has started mounting a search and conducting raids in monasteries and places where monks live in northern Burma's Kachin state and neighboring Sino-Burma border areas.

As of Tuesday, the police team began raiding, interrogating and collecting guest lists from monasteries on the Sino-Burma border district of Bamaw, local residents said.

"The situation is not improving. The monasteries here are being raided for the third time now. This time they [authorities] are conducting a more comprehensive search and sustained interrogation," an abbot on the Chinese border town of Loi Kye told Mizzima.

After the protest by Buddhist monks began on September 18, raids on monasteries on the Sino-Burma border began in early October. The monasteries have been raided twice, once led by the Sangha Nayaka committee and the other led by an immigration team, who collected the list of monks in the monasteries.

"The earlier teams had raided and searched monasteries in the town but this time they raided even monasteries on the hills and in remote areas," said the abbot.

While authorities have begun to release some of the 140 monks arrested during earlier raids on monasteries in Bamaw town, at least eight monks are still in custody.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are also said to be conducting raids on monasteries in border towns, where several Burmese monks reside.