{"id":72924,"date":"2025-07-17T14:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T05:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jul\/17\/monks-behaving-badly-the-sex-scandal-rocking-thailands-buddhist-clergy-ntwnfb"},"modified":"2025-07-17T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T05:39:13","slug":"monks-behaving-badly-the-sex-scandal-rocking-thailands-buddhist-clergy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72924","title":{"rendered":"Monks behaving badly: the sex scandal rocking Thailand\u2019s Buddhist clergy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stories of monks behaving badly are not uncommon in Thailand, but the scale of a recent scandal has sparked questions about wealth and privilege<\/p>\n<p>The disappearance of a respected monk from his Buddhist temple in central Bangkok has revealed a sex scandal that has rocked Thailand, with allegations of blackmail, lavish gifts and a string of dismissals raising questions about the money and power enjoyed by the country\u2019s orange-robed clergy.<\/p>\n<p>Investigations into the whereabouts of senior monk Phra Thep Wachirapamok unexpectedly led police to a woman who the police suspect conducted intimate relationships with several senior monks, and then blackmailed them to keep the liaisons quiet.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jul\/17\/monks-behaving-badly-the-sex-scandal-rocking-thailands-buddhist-clergy-ntwnfb\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stories of monks behaving badly are not uncommon in Thailand, but the scale of a recent scandal has sparked questions about wealth and privilegeThe disappearance of a respected monk from his Buddhist temple in central Bangkok has revealed a sex scandal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,211,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-buddhism","category-thailand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72925,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72924\/revisions\/72925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}