Thursday, April 18, 2013

Buddhist monk Wirathu uses racism and rumours to spread hatred in Burma...

His name is Wirathu, he calls himself the "Burmese Bin Laden" and he is a Buddhist monk who is stoking religious hatred across Burma.

The saffron-robed 45-year-old regularly shares his hate-filled rants through DVD and social media, in which he warns against Muslims who "target innocent young Burmese girls and rape them", and "indulge in cronyism".

To ears untrained in the Burmese language, his sermons seem steady and calm – almost trance-like – with Wirathu rocking back and forth, eyes downcast. Translate his softly spoken words, however, and it becomes clear how his paranoia and fear, muddled with racist stereotypes and unfounded rumours, have helped to incite violence and spread misinformation in a nation still stumbling towards democracy.

"We are being raped in every town, being sexually harassed in every town, being ganged up on and bullied in every town," Wirathu recently told the Guardian, speaking from the Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay where he is based.

"In every town, there is a crude and savage Muslim majority." Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Fear stalks Yangon's Muslims after Buddhist-led killings...
  2. Burmese neo-nazi movement rising against Muslims...
  3. Anonymous and Operation Rohingya...
  4. Mosques torched in deadly Myanmar riots...
  5. In Myanmar's volatile west, sectarian violence worsens...
  6. Buddhist monks in Myanmar hold mass rally to deport Rohingyas...
  7. Aung San Suu Kyi facing backlash for silence on Rohingya abuses...
  8. Burmese Rohingya Muslims’ unabated genocide, but no one cares...
  9. In Buddhist Myanmar, monks gone wild...

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