969: How Burma’s Buddhist Monks Turned on Islam

969: How Burma’s Buddhist Monks Turned on Islam

Please listen to the VOICE RECORDING about Wirathu at the original BBC web page.

To be a Muslim in Burma is dangerous. Thanks to an orchestrated campaign led by a Buddhist monk, the Muslim minority in Myanmar has been victimised and persecuted, and in some extreme cases members of the community have been killed.

Heart and Soul meets Wirathu. With his balding head and orange robes, he is the epitome of what the rest of the world thinks of when we imagine the monks of Burmese Buddhism, but the sermons he preaches are those of fear and violence against Muslims. He feels they want to become the majority in the country. He tells Heart and Soul:

Anti-Muslim monk stokes Burmese religious tensions

Anti-Muslim monk stokes Burmese religious tensions

By Jonah Fisher BBC News, Mandalay

Time magazine labelled Wirathu “The face of Buddhist terror”

Continue reading the main story

This week, religious violence has once again flared in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Hundreds of Muslim homes have been burnt to the ground in Sagaing region after being attacked by Buddhist mobs.

In just over a year more than 200 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed and many more displaced as unrest has spread from Rakhine state in the west to towns across the country.