Myanmar’s top Buddhist body has ordered hardline group Ma Ba Tha to remove all public displays, according to a document seen by AFP on Tuesday, a move aimed at curbing the movement’s influence amid rising Islamophobia.
Myanmar is gripped by deepening religious tensions that have repeatedly spilled into violence, partially attributed to anti-Muslim rhetoric spread by Ma Ba Tha’s monks and its followers.
The Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, Myanmar’s highest Buddhist authority, sent a letter to government ministries on Tuesday saying the group must remove any public literature or billboards with its name on it.
“Ma Ba Tha signboards across the country are to be taken down completely by July 15 at the latest,” said the letter, which was obtained by AFP and also carried the signatures of several senior Ma Ba Tha monks.
Failure to adhere to the ruling, the Sangha warned, would result in action being taken under both Buddhist and lay law, the letter added.
The move comes just weeks after the same committee, which represents the upper echelons of the clergy in the overwhelmingly Buddhist country, banned the country’s most notorious monk Wirathu from preaching for a year.
Once dubbed “the face of Buddhist terror,” the Mandalay-based monk has led calls for restrictions on the country’s Muslim minority and frequently spews vitriol online warning of an Islamic takeover.
Religious tensions have soared since a group of Rohingya Muslims attacked police posts in the north of Rakhine State in October, sparking a bloody military crackdown that has drawn widespread international condemnation.
Since then nationalists in Yangon have held protests, stopped Islamic religious ceremonies and most recently forced two schools to shut their doors over accusations they were illegally doubling up as mosques.
Police have arrested five people this month after a fight broke out in a Muslim neighbourhood of Yangon when dozens of nationalists raided a house believed to be hiding Rohingyas.
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