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Monk evicted from pagoda
Phnom Penh Post Monday, 12 September 2011 15:02 May Titthara
Venerable Luon Sovath speaks to reporters at Ounalom pagoda in Phnom Penh before removing his personal belongings from his room. The activist monk has been banned from pagodas.
A group of residents facing eviction from the Boeung Kak area yesterday turned out to support the monk who has shaken Cambodia’s Buddhist hierarchy by his peaceful advocacy on their behalf.
About 20 residents of the area helped Venerable Loun Sovath remove his personal belongings from Ounalom pagoda yesterday morning, following an order from Supreme Patriarch Non Nget that he do so.
The latest order followed one in April that banned the 32-year-old rural monk from all pagodas in the capital.
Boeung Kak representative Kong Chantha, 44, said it was an injustice that Loun Savath had been banned.
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Cambodia’s bill to limit NGOs
Cambodia’s bill to limit NGOs
If Cambodia passes a law to regulate NGO activity, what influence will it have on the work of land rights activists?
Cambodia’s Council of Ministers recently released a third draft of the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO) that would more tightly control the eligibility of civil society organisations and how they are run. Several NGOs have spoken out against the proposed law, saying that it would give the government too much authority over their work.
“If the law is passed in its current form, everyone will lose out, from civil society to investors with an eye on Cambodia, but, above all, the Cambodian people in whose name NGOs and associations work,” said Virak Ou, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
Pressure mounts on monk
By Phnom Penh Post
- Tuesday, 23 August 2011 15:01, John Anthony
Venerable Loun Sovath (right) welcomes parliamentarian Seang Nam at a pagoda in Siem Reap province’s Chi Kraeng district to celebrate the release of 12 men from prison, some of whom were detained for more than two years, in connection with a land dispute.
A community that gathered yesterday to celebrate the release of farmers who had been jailed for more than two years following a land dispute were told that the monk who led their campaign to free the men had been banned from every pagoda in Siem Reap province.
The written notice from the province’s senior most monk, Venerable Pich San, was distributed ahead of the two-day event, which started on Saturday.
Pich San also banned Venerable Loun Sovath from leading the celebration and said that the monk, who has become famous for blessing communities involved in land disputes, had disobeyed Buddhist values.
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