Monks defrocked after street brawl

From correspondents in Bangkok

May 31, 2005

FIVE Thai Buddhist monks have been defrocked and fined after a brawl with monks from a nearby temple, police and newspapers said today.

The street fight was the culmination of years of antagonism between monks from the two temples who had often exchanged curses, insults and rude gestures as they collected alms on different sides of a road, the Manager newspaper said.

"When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So am I," the paper quoted one of the defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan, as saying after the brawl in the north-eastern state of Nong Khai yesterday.

Boonlert said he usually carried a knuckle-duster in his shoulder bag during the morning collection of alms on which Buddhist monks depend, it said.

Boonlert and the four other monks, all aged between 15 and 28, were each fined 1000 baht ($32) by police for public brawling and were defrocked by senior monks, Wut Pomraksa, head of Nong Khai police station, said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html

As a monk friend of mine once said: Many of the boys in robes are not monks so much by choice as by necessity, being orphans or from dirt-poort families. In the light of that it isn't so strange as one might think. Improper, yes, but not strange.

Many of the boys in robes are not monks so much by choice as by necessity, being orphans or from dirt-poort families.

Or "ex"-criminals.

Many of the boys in robes are not monks so much by choice as by necessity, being orphans or from dirt-poort families.

Or "ex"-criminals.

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I guess that could explain the 28 year old...

and the knuckle dusters on alms rounds, I suppose, as well

Awaiting the TNA news: Crackdown on monks

Or the favorite promotion slant:

Thailand: The Hub Of Hooligan Monks