Extremist Buddhists Target Mandalay's Muslims

In a cluttered room in a monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar's second city, a group of crimson-robed monks and their followers feverishly smoke and talk. One monk wearing black, thick-rimmed glasses feeds paper into a photocopier. Another lies on the floor, stapling pages of propaganda together. Hangers-on laugh loudly and flick cigarette butts into an ashtray.

They're forming petitions, explains a monk with oversized sunglasses perched on his forehead. A local journalist recently criticised the group's front man, the vitriolic monk Ashin Wirathu, known for his violently anti-Muslim rhetoric. They now want the reporter arrested.