Ashin Issariya appears unassuming, but the quiet demeanour quickly changes when he has something to say. In the pre-dawn light of Burma’s nascent reform process the Buddhist monk and former Saffron Revolution leader isn’t afraid to say what others won’t, even if it seems to put him at odds with his own.
Based in the country’s commercial capital, Rangoon, Issariya helped lead thousands of monks to challenge the former military regime in 2007, a choice that cost him nearly five years as a political prisoner. Now he heads up a grassroots organization made up of different religious leaders opposed to the new 969 movement.
