MONK PROTESTORS

Bangkok, November 2022. Amid heightened security during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, pro-democracy demonstrators—including monks—clashed with riot police outside the event perimeter. The confrontation unfolded not merely as a disruption of protocol, but as a visible tension between state choreography and dissenting civic presence. In a country where the saffron robe has historically oscillated between spiritual authority and political neutrality, the image of monks in direct confrontation with uniformed power marked a moment of rupture: the religious intersecting with the political, with monastic figures standing in opposition to state authority.