Written by Maung Maung (Shwe Keraweik) and translated by Dr. Ko Ko Gyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo credit : Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following his secret March 2012 meeting with U Aung Thaung\u2014the notorious leader of the state-backed Swarn Arr Shin<\/em> militia and trusted right-hand man of Senior General Than Shwe\u2014U Wirathu aggressively restarted his anti-Islamic campaign with renewed consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n U Wirathu began leveraging Facebook to regularly post inflammatory, highly exaggerated accounts of crimes allegedly committed by Myanmar Muslims. Violating basic principles of justice, he routinely labeled suspects as convicted criminals long before any court of law had even reviewed the cases or issued a verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even minor, isolated incidents were systematically blown out of proportion. He manufactured a narrative that the Muslim community was hostile, calculating, and orchestrating these crimes as part of a grander, malicious scheme. By making mountains out of molehills, he successfully manipulated accidental disputes, minor civil cases, and localized crimes, framing them to the Buddhist public as deliberate, major Islamic offenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, he openly supported the atrocities committed by Rakhine extremists. On the walls of his Dhama Wiraha monastery building, located within the Masoeyein monastery compound, he pasted Islamophobic propaganda, graphic hate speech articles, and misleading imagery. This included enlarged vinyl sheets displaying photos of attacked Thai Buddhist monks and burnt bodies from a tragic petrol-tanker train accident in Nigeria\u2014intentionally presented as if these horrors had occurred within Myanmar at the hands of local Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He haphazardly organized public protests to fit his anti-Islam agenda, ranging from rallies supporting President U Thein Sein to demonstrations against the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Remarkably, none of these highly disruptive protests were ever blocked or disturbed by Mandalay Division Prime Minister U Ye Myint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to this growing threat, Mandalayan Muslims actively worked to prevent religious riots through collective physical and mental teamwork. We reached out to true, peace-loving Buddhist monks with donations, cooperative dialogue, and clear explanations of our faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, our youth-led struggles were warmly supported by various respected factions of the monastic community, including monks from the four corners of Mandalay, representatives from the Ma Ha Na<\/em> (the state monastic standard-bearers), and prominent leaders of the Saffron Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Revered figures such as Sayadaw U Ahriyar<\/strong> (Myawaddy Monastery), U Khaemarsara<\/strong> (Maha Myat Muni Mid-Monastery), U Withuta<\/strong>, Galoneni Sayardaw U Karwiya<\/strong>, the Asia Alinyaung Sayardaw<\/strong>, and the Patheingyi Ooyin Kyaung Sayardaw<\/strong>, along with Saffron Revolution monk Ashin Issariya<\/strong> (Uzin Jaung Jaung), joined hands with us to form the Thahazarta (Unity and Friendship) Association<\/strong> to actively safeguard Mandalay from riots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tragically, on the exact day our association was finding its footing, the military government launched a brutal firebombing attack against protesting monks at the Letpadaung Taung Copper Mine. Some of the brave monks who left our friendship meeting that evening were seriously injured in the crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The political fallout from this attack created deep internal rifts and differing opinions among the broader Mandalayan clergy. As a result, the urgent momentum of our newly formed Thahazarta Association<\/em> stalled, as the monastic community was forced to prioritize internal unity and healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People from all across Myanmar contributed aid for the firebombed monks. Among these donations, Mandalayan Muslims personally handed 2,000,000 Kyat to U Wirathu to assist the victims. Curiously, that entire sum vanished without a trace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When some Muslim individuals offered to arrange specialized medical treatment abroad for the worst-injured monks, the military government flatly refused to grant them permission to leave. Instead, they transported only four monks to Yangon for treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the state covered only basic hospital care, the monks reached out to the Mandalayan Muslim community to cover essential auxiliary expenses\u2014such as food, taxi fares, and accommodation for the accompanying caretaker monks. Because of our deep-rooted relationships, Ko San from the Myitta Campaign (Yangon) and Haji U Tin Maung Than (Secretary General of the Islamic Council) personally sponsored all of these expenses, picking up every single bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As U Wirathu and his network systematically institutionalized Islamophobia, Muslim individuals and civil organizations across Myanmar did everything in their power to counter the tide of hate speech. We meticulously documented the Islamophobic sermons, pamphlets, and video CDs that U Wirathu was allowed to freely distribute across the country without any administrative hindrance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We repeatedly submitted this compiled evidence to local, divisional, and Union-level state authorities. Yet, the government took absolutely no action against him, refusing to restrict his movements or silence his vitriol. This represents a severe, criminal omission of duty by the governing authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emboldened by this state-level immunity, anti-Muslim incidents rapidly erupted in regions like Sai Taung, Kamma, Karen State, Thingankyun (Yangon), and Yamethin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simultaneously, U Wirathu usurped the local legal system. If a motorbike accident, a car crash, a domestic dispute, a lovers’ quarrel, a workplace disagreement, or a marketplace fight occurred\u2014and one of the parties involved happened to be a Muslim\u2014the case was immediately dragged into U Wirathu\u2019s self-styled “Masoeyein Court.” Acting as an unrecognized, unappointed judge, he would hand down highly lopsided, illegal verdicts based entirely on race and religion. The relevant authorities knowingly stood by, allowing him to act as he pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During this volatile period, two Union Ministers\u2014Minister U Aung Min<\/strong> and Minister U Soe Thein<\/strong>\u2014arrived in Mandalay for a town-hall style meeting at the Mya Mandalar Hotel. I managed to secure a seat at this meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I directly confronted Minister U Aung Min and urged him to take state action to halt the dangerous spread of hate speech, he blatantly looked at me and replied that no hate speech was occurring in Myanmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I immediately rebutted his claim with hard evidence, Minister U Aung Min fell silent. Minister U Soe Thein then stepped in, confirming that the issue existed but dismissively advising us that if the opposing side was utilizing hate speech, our community simply needed to counter it with “love speech.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n I refuted his dismissive answer, openly complaining that whenever we attempted to organize official Multi-Religious Peace and Friendship functions to foster that exact harmony, the Mandalay Division Government systematically blocked our permits. Minister U Soe Thein conceded, stating he would personally inform Prime Minister U Ye Myint of the issue and advised us to continue applying for permits legally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Driven by this high-level dialogue, worried Muslim leaders and peace-loving Mandalayans of both faiths realized that a major, formalized Multi-Religious Prayer Event was desperately needed to restore understanding and shield our community from the gathering storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be continued…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Maung Maung (Shwe Keraweik) and translated by Dr. Ko Ko Gyi. Photo credit : Reuters CHAPTER 3: The Extremist Pivot and the Failed Path to Peace Following his secret March 2012 meeting with U Aung Thaung\u2014the notorious leader of the state-backed Swarn Arr Shin militia and trusted right-hand man of Senior General Than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,133,127,12,130,11,10,16,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-racism","category-articles","category-human-rights-constitution-federal-democracy-social-nets-minority-rights","category-islam-hope-allah-swt","category-masjids-in-burma-or-myanmar","category-motivation","category-myanmar-muslims-history","category-news","category-opinion","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6231,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6229\/revisions\/6231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Weaponizing Social Media and Fabricating Threat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Mandalay Youth Movement for Unity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Disappearing Funds and Targeted Cyber Campaigns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
State Co-conspirators and Judicial Usurpation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Speaking Truth to Power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n