USCIRF Issues Reports on Religious Freedom Violations in Burma

By USCIRF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 13, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released two reports highlighting Burma’s serious religious freedom challenges. 

Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma highlights the pervasive and longstanding persecution and discrimination Christians face that have persisted, often unreported, for generations. View the report here in English and Burmese. 

Suspended in Time: The Ongoing Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma details the persecution of Rohingya Muslims’ resulting from government-directed abuses and/or government indifference to discrimination and violence that has killed hundreds, displaced thousands, and destroyed hundreds of religious properties since 2012. View the report here in English and Burmese. 

From Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma

The enduring, constitutionally entrenched power of the military and the elevation of Buddhism as the de facto state religion are key factors in understanding violations of religious freedom currently affecting Christian communities in Burma…Many of the discriminatory policies and practices instituted under the military regime continue today… The Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha, and other ultra-nationalistic monks have played a key role in abusing the right to religious freedom and inciting violence against Christian pastors and missionaries.

From Suspended in Time: The Ongoing Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma:

More than four years ago, two waves of sectarian violence struck Rakhine State. In the time since, Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine Buddhists, and individuals of other ethnicities and beliefs throughout the state have suffered grievous deprivations of basic rights, including inadequate access to food, water, shelter, education, and health care; restrictions on freedom of movement; denial of needed humanitarian aid; limited opportunities to obtain an education or earn a living; egregious human rights abuses resulting in death, injury, and displacement; and, in the case of Rohingya Muslims, the denial of the right to a nationality and citizenship.