‘Muslims are dangerous’: Myanmar Buddhist monks support anti-Muslim laws

More than 10,000 Buddhist monks and nuns rallied recently to celebrate Myanmar’s restrictive new race and religion laws, packing themselves into an indoor soccer stadium to cheer and chant nationalist slogans.

The event, held last month in Myanmar’s commercial capital, was a dramatic display of a rising force in Myanmar’s political landscape — a group of ultra-nationalist Buddhists called the Ma Ba Tha, whom analysts say could pose a threat to the country’s shaky hopes for democracy.

Voters in Myanmar, or Burma, head to the polls Sunday in a landmark election that is the first since the military junta eased their control and began democratic overhauls in 2010. Reliable polling is scarce, but Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s Nobel laureate, has been drawing large crowds as she campaigns across the country for her National League for Democracy party.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Ma Ba Tha, which translates to the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, have thrown their support to President Thein Sein, the former general, and his military-backed ruling party. The movement’s growing influence and its support for laws restricting religious freedom have troubled Myanmar’s advocates in the United States, who saw the country as a potential model for democratic overhauls and an Obama administration success story.