The saffron-robed 45-year-old Wirathu, who calls himself Burma’s Bin Laden regularly shares his hate-filled speeches through Youtube, Social media and DVD’s, in which he warns against Muslims who “target innocent young Burmese girls and rape them”, and “indulge in cronyism” according to a Guardian report.
His speeches and unfounded rumours, have helped to incite violence against Muslims 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 told the Guardian recently, speaking from the Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay where he is based.
He further said, “In every town, there is a crude and savage Muslim majority.”
Most of the Buddhist monks are peace loving, but there also exists the monsters like Wirathu. It would be easy to disregard Wirathu as a misinformed monk with militant views, were it not for his popularity.
He is presiding over some 2,500 monks at Masoeyein monastery, Wirathu has thousands of followers on Facebook and his YouTube videos have been watched tens of thousands of times.
He is also a creator or nationalist campaign to boycott Muslim businesses, Wirathu was jailed for 25 years in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim hatred but freed in 2010 under a general amnesty, according to the Guardian.
Many believes that his speeches inspired the destruction of Muslim last June as well, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed and lakhs of them displaced.