Ashin Wirathu
Who was Ashin Wirathu?
Controversial Buddhist monk known for leading anti-Muslim movements and nationalist rhetoric in Myanmar.
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Ashin Wirathu (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Ashin Wirathu, born Win Khaing Oo on 10 July 1968 in Kyaukse, Myanmar, is a Burmese Buddhist monk who rose to international notoriety as a leading figure in anti-Muslim nationalist movements within the country. Ordained as a monk at a young age, he became associated with the Masoeyein Monastery in Mandalay, one of the largest monasteries in Myanmar, which provided him a platform to spread his religious and political views to a wide audience.
Wirathu emerged as the most prominent voice of the 969 Movement, a Buddhist nationalist campaign that used the numbers 969 as a counter-symbol to what its followers characterized as Islamic commercial and cultural encroachment. The movement encouraged Buddhists to patronize only Buddhist-owned businesses and spread messaging that portrayed Muslims, particularly the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State, as an existential threat to Buddhism and Burmese identity. His sermons and recordings were widely distributed on DVDs and later through social media, reaching audiences far beyond Mandalay.
His rhetoric has been directly linked by human rights organizations to outbreaks of communal violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Myanmar, including riots in 2012 and 2013 that resulted in deaths, displacement, and the destruction of mosques and homes. Time magazine featured him on its June 2013 cover with the headline 'The Face of Buddhist Terror,' a designation that brought global attention to his activities and sparked considerable controversy, including protests from some Buddhist communities who objected to the characterization. The United Nations and various international bodies have cited his speeches as contributing to an atmosphere that enabled the persecution and mass displacement of the Rohingya people.
Wirathu was previously imprisoned by the Myanmar government from 2003 to 2012 for distributing material that incited religious unrest, serving approximately nine years of a twenty-five year sentence before being released under a general amnesty. Following his release, he resumed his nationalist activities with renewed energy and a broader reach enabled by social media platforms. Facebook, which was used extensively as a primary internet platform in Myanmar, eventually banned his page for repeatedly posting content deemed to incite religious hatred, despite prior warnings from the company.
In 2019, Myanmar's government issued an arrest warrant for Wirathu after he made statements criticizing State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and he went into hiding. He later reappeared following the military coup of February 2021, publicly expressing support for the military junta, known as the Tatmadaw. His alignment with the military illustrated the complex intersections of religious nationalism and political power in Myanmar's ongoing crises.
Before Fame
Wirathu grew up in Kyaukse, a town in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar, during a period when the country was governed by an isolationist military socialist regime under General Ne Win. He entered monastic life as a young man, a common path in Burmese Buddhist society where the sangha, or monastic community, holds considerable social and moral authority. His early religious education took place within a tradition that closely tied Burmese national identity to Theravada Buddhism.
His path toward political prominence began in earnest during the late 1990s and early 2000s when he began preaching nationalist sermons with explicit anti-Muslim content in Mandalay. His distribution of inflammatory recordings led to his arrest and imprisonment in 2003. It was ultimately his release in 2012, coinciding with Myanmar's partial democratic opening under President Thein Sein, that allowed him to reach a national and international audience, as a loosening of press restrictions and the rapid spread of mobile internet gave his message unprecedented reach.
Key Achievements
- Founded and led the 969 Movement, a Buddhist nationalist organization that gained nationwide influence in Myanmar during the 2010s
- Built a mass following through the distribution of recorded sermons on DVDs and later through social media platforms, particularly Facebook
- Co-founded the Ma Ba Tha, or the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, which successfully lobbied for the passage of four controversial 'race and religion protection laws' in Myanmar in 2015
- Gained international recognition, however notoriously, through coverage including a Time magazine cover story that brought global scrutiny to Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar
- Maintained political relevance across multiple shifts in Myanmar's government, from military rule to partial democracy and back to military control after 2021
Did You Know?
- 01.Wirathu was featured on the cover of Time magazine in June 2013, an image that prompted protests outside Time's offices from Buddhist groups who felt the coverage misrepresented their religion.
- 02.The number 969 used by his movement carries symbolic meaning: the nine attributes of Buddha, the six attributes of the Dharma, and the nine attributes of the Sangha.
- 03.He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2003 but served only about nine years before being released in a general amnesty in January 2012.
- 04.Despite being a Buddhist monk, Wirathu openly expressed support for the Myanmar military coup of 2021, praising the Tatmadaw at a time when most of the country was engaged in civil disobedience against military rule.
- 05.Facebook's ban of his account in 2018 was part of a broader action the company took against Myanmar military officials and organizations amid scrutiny over the platform's role in spreading hate speech during the Rohingya crisis.