Right-wing Buddhist leading the campaign to force Muslims out of Burma says he wants his group 'to be like the English Defence League'

Source dailymailuk, 31 May

Venerable Wirathu is leader of Burma's '969' campaign to boycott Muslims

He was jailed for nine years in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim violence

Says he wants to be like EDL who 'protect the public without violence'

Right-wing Buddhist: The Venerable Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed for nine years in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim violence, is leader of Burma's so-called '969' campaign to boycott Islamic businesses and bring an end to inter-marriage with Buddhists

The English Defence League might be the last place you would expect a devout Buddhist monk to turn for inspiration.

But a right-wing spiritual leader in Burma has revealed how he wants to copy the EDL in his bid to rid his country of its Muslim minority.

The Venerable Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed for nine years in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim violence, says the hardline nationalist party should be applauded for 'not carrying out violence, but protecting the public'.

His comments come a week after more than 1,000 EDL members marched on Downing Street in a protest over the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in nearby Woolwich, swilling beer, chanting anti-Muslim slogans and clashing with anti-fascist activists. Thirteen people were arrested.

Now, orange-robed Wirathu, who leads Burma's so-called '969' campaign to boycott Islamic businesses and bring an end to inter-marriage with Buddhists, says he wants his gang members to be more like the EDL.

According to The Times, Wirathu said: 'People give me various names: The Burmese bin Laden, the bald neo-Nazi.

'[But] do you know the English Defence League? We would like to be like the EDL. Not carrying out violence, but protecting the public.'

The '969' group was behind last month's riots that saw intense clashes between its members and Muslims that left 43 people dead in the city of Meiktila.

And only yesterday, hundreds of Buddhist men on motorcycles waved iron rods in a northeastern town in Burma before setting fire to a Muslim-owned cinema in the latest incident to spill over from simmering religious tensions in the country.