A committee from Myanmar's Buddhist authority, which includes the country's 47 most senior monks, confirmed the ban in a statement on Saturday.

The local Irrawaddy news site said the decision, which came into effect on Friday and lasts for 12 months, was intended to prevent monk Ashin Wirathu from spreading hate speech.

They warned the controversial monk that any breach of the order would lead to legal action.

Irrawaddy cited the statement as saying the 49-year-old's speeches were intended to cause communal strife and hinder the rule of law.

The country's highest Buddhist authority also accused him of taking sides with political parties to inflame tensions.

Widely supported

Wirathu is a member of the 969 Movement, an Islamophobic nationalist group of Buddhists known for verbally attacking Muslims in a majority Buddhist country where many worry about Islamic encroachment.

The digits 969 are said to symbolize the virtues of Buddha, Buddhist practices and the Buddhist community.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Fleeing Myanmar In October 2016, a Rohingya group was accused of killing nine policemen in Myanmar. Since then, the Muslim minority has been under attack in the mostly Buddhist country again. More than 70,000 Rohingyas have fled across the border to Bangladesh. One of the camps they live in is Kutupalong, in the southern Cox's Bazar district.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Self-reliance required Rohingyas might be safe from Myanmar's military here, but life in the Kutupalong camp is anything but easy. There is no real infrastructure and only makeshift housing set up by the refugees themselves. They fled Myanmar because the military torched their homes and raped and killed hundreds of people, according to human rights organizations.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh No child's play There's no running water in most parts of the camp and not much to do for the thousands of refugee children. This girl is picking up mud from one of the camp's lakes.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Living in shacks Mud and other basic materials are used by to build houses in the camp so residents at least have roofs over their heads.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Long history of conflict In Myanmar, Rohingyas have been discriminated against since before the country's independence from Britain in 1948. The group continues to be denied citizenship and voting rights.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Chased away yet again? Rohingya also experience discrimination in Bangladesh, where the government has turned away boats with hundreds of refugees because it claims that the camps are already overcrowded. Now, Bangladesh's government is planning to relocate Rohingyas to a remote island that is mostly flooded during monsoon season.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Deserted on an island The island of Thengar Char, where Bangladesh's government wants to settle Rohingyas, is miles away from the mainland, can only be reached by boat and has been raided by pirates before. An NGO coordinator helping Rohingyas once told DW that there would be few opportunities to make a living on Thengar Char.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Bad track record Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali has acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to be done on Thengar Char. "'The relocation will take place only after the development activities are completed,'' he has said. But the government hasn't done much to improve the Kutupalong camp either, and residents have to take care of everything themselves.

Forgotten refugees: Rohingyas make a home in Bangladesh Erased from history The lack of a safe homeland leaves Rohingyas with an uncertain future as Myanmar works to erase their past. The Culture and Religious Affairs Ministry plans to release a history textbook with no mention whatsoever of the Muslim minority. "The real truth is that the word 'Rohingya' was never used or existed as an ethnicity or race in Myanmar's history," the ministry claimed in December 2016. Author: Carla Bleiker



The monk is also linked to another nationalist group, Ma Ba Tha, which is behind the so-called race and religion protection laws, which human rights watchdogs see as a direct attack on religious minorities in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Persecution of Muslims

Wirathu has been blamed for inspiring sectarian violence in the western Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, and is home to around one million Rohingya Muslims. He was dubbed the "Buddhist bin Laden," after the dead al Qaeda leader, for describing Muslims as "mad dogs" and "troublemakers."

In 2015, he called a United Nations official who criticized Myanmar's discrimination of Muslims a "whore," and recently used a Facebook post to praise the assassination of a top aide to Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of Myanmar's government. The aide, U Ko Ni, was Muslim.

Thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar in recent years after being the target of sectarian violence

Rakhine has seen more than five years of conflict between Buddhist and Muslim communities, which culminated in a major crackdown on the Rohingya in late 2016 by the military and extremist Buddhist groups. The assault was launched to counter attacks on police camps by insurgents.

Human rights groups say several hundred people have been killed and have accused the military of wide-scale human rights violations.

mm/jlw (dpa, KNA)