Associated Press
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; A16

RANGOON, Burma, Sept. 18 -- Hundreds of defiant monks marched through Rangoon on Tuesday, walking 10 miles through streets lined with cheering crowds, after being barred from Burma's most important Buddhist temple along the way, witnesses said.

The marches were the latest in a series of anti-government protests, which began Aug. 19 after authorities raised fuel prices by as much as 500 percent, further squeezing Burma's already impoverished citizens. The protests have continued despite the detention of more than 100 demonstrators and the rough treatment of others.

At least 400 saffron-robed monks, walking in rows of two and three and cheered on by thousands of onlookers offering water, were locked out of Rangoon's famous Shwedagon pagoda and then the Sule and Botataung pagodas. After pro-junta toughs and plainclothes police intervened, the monks sat in the street and chanted before returning to their monasteries.

Some senior monks -- generally seen as more conservative -- asked the group of mostly young monks to end their march. The two groups argued but eventually the procession continued.

In the city of Bago, about 40 miles away, 1,000 monks peacefully marched to the Shwemawdaw pagoda, residents said. Witnesses in both cities spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Soldiers and armed police were deployed near some major monasteries with truckloads of barbed-wire barricades waiting nearby.

Supporters of the country's junta government snatched video and still cameras from some journalists and attempted to seize one journalist and force him into a truck, witnesses said.

No one was arrested in Tuesday's marches, and both ended peacefully.

The monks had given authorities a Monday deadline to apologize for beating hundreds of them two weeks ago when they marched peacefully in Pakokku, a center of Buddhist learning, to protest the rising fuel and consumer prices. The apology never came.

In addition to the protests, monks threatened to cut off contact with members of the military and their families, and to refuse alms from them -- a humiliating gesture that would embarrass the junta.

Monks have been at the forefront of political protests in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Because they are so revered by the public, repressing them is politically risky.

Tuesday's marches also marked the 19th anniversary of the coup in Burma in which the current junta took over after crushing a failed pro-democracy rebellion that sought an end to military rule, imposed since 1962.

Protesters in the Philippines, India and New Zealand also marked the anniversary.

The junta held general elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won. Suu Kyi has been in detention or under house arrest for more than 11 years.