Thai Buddhists rally again for official status

BANGKOK, June 11 (Reuters) Around 5,000 Buddhist monks and religious activists blocked traffic in front of Thailand's parliament today, 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.

In April, the same group of protesters accompanied by nine elephants braved scorching heat to march 30 km (18 miles) from the capital's western suburbs to parliament.

Thongchai said the rally of 1,000 saffron-robed monks and 4,000 devotees in pure white would grow in size as the charter drafters started to debate clauses in the new constitution later in the week.

His campaign is the latest in a growing number of protests that the Council for National Security, as the coup leaders now call themselves, are being forced to address.

Last Friday, around 10,000 supporters of Thaksin's ousted administration rallied in front of Bangkok's golden-spired Grand Palace before marching to the army's headquarters to call for army chief and coup supremo Sonthi Boonyaratglin to step down.

Sonthi rejected their demand.

Reuters SKB DB1104