About 500 Buddhist monks held prayers inside Myanmar's holiest shrine in Yangon on Thursday after being locked out for two days to prevent them launching a formal religious boycott of the ruling military junta.
Braving monsoon rains and the attention of dozens of plainclothes security police, the maroon-robed monks chanted mantras and then walked in procession round the guilded stupa of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the former Burma's religious heart.
Protest marches by monks are becoming a daily occurrence, a sign of the civilian anger at last month's shock fuel price rises becoming a more deep-rooted religious movement against the generals and their 45 years of rule.
Several hundred ordinary people joined in before the monks marched through the streets of the main commercial city, past the embassies of Britain, Australia, India and the United States. They met no opposition. However, armed police threw up barbed wire barricades near Yangon university.
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