After dropping all charges, Myanmar army frees notorious anti-Muslim monk

Mandalay  

Ashin Wirathu, a nationalist Buddhist monk notorious for his anti-Muslim tirades, has been released by Myanmar’s military.

The development comes after all charges, including sedition, levied against him by Aung San Suu Kyi’s deposed government were dropped, a military statement said on Monday.  

For his role in stirring up religious hatred in Myanmar, the monk was once dubbed by Time magazine as the “The Face of Buddhist Terror”.    

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Without providing details, it added, he was “receiving treatment at a military hospital”.  

The monk, who belongs to Mandalay, became involved in the anti-Muslim 969 group in 2001. He was first jailed in 2003.  

Wirathu was released in 2010. Two years later, he rose to prominence after rioting broke out between Buddhists and ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine.  

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The 53-year-old monk has founded a nationalist organisation, which was accused of inciting violence against Muslims and was also successful in lobbying for laws making interfaith marriages difficult.  

For his tirades, Myanmar’s highest Buddhist authority banned him from preaching for one year in 2017. In 2018, Facebook shut down his account.  

Last year, the monk was jailed after turning himself in to authorities over May 2019 charges of attempting to bring “hatred or contempt” and of “exciting disaffection” towards Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.