Christian, Gov't Agencies Highlight Religious, Human Rights Violations of Burma
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has recently been a country of concern for religious and basic rights abuses.
Burma’s religious and human rights violations are “simply awful” according to reports by Christian and government organizations.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has recently been a country of concern for religious and basic rights abuses including forced conversions, church closures, rape and confiscations of land without compensation. The country has been ruled by authoritarian military regimes since 1962, with the current State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) government ruling without a constitution or legislature since 1988, according to the U.S. Department of State.
"This was my first visit to the Thai-Burmese border areas, and what I heard and saw confirms everything I had read in reports previously," said Simon Conveney MEP, an Irish Member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in a recent visit to the Thai-Burmese border organized by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
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"Gross violations of human rights continue to be perpetrated by the Burmese junta. I met people who had fled their villages because they faced constant forced labor, torture, rape and abuse at the hands of the Burma Army. This has gone on for too long and the world has turned a blind eye. It is time now for the international community to act."
Myanmar along with China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Sudan, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia were designated as “countries of particular concern” by the International Religious Freedom Report 2005 release last Tuesday.
Local civilians and military authorities arrest clergy, close house churches and prohibit religious services, according to the State Department’s report.
Reporting from Burma, Mission Network News (MNN) said “the situation in Burma is simply awful,” and listed as examples atrocities such as forced labor and killings of mostly tribal Christians.
"This is being conducted by the government, using its military all up and down the border with Thailand and of course the entire country, where there's not just persecution, they're actually killing, slaughtering whole villages," said Strategic World Impact’s Kevin Turner told MNN.
In addition, Christians have found difficulties in buying land to build churches or gaining permission to repair churches. Moreover, Christians also find difficulties in importing religious literature into Burma. The government controls all publications in the country, with full control to censor any writing. Import of Bible translation into indigenous languages is illegal.
"We've be smuggling in Bibles across the border, we've been bringing in food and supplies,” said Turner, whose international ministry reaches out to persecuted regions. “We helped build a church and a school. Within one month the Burmese military had come in and not only burned our church to the ground, but they also destroyed the entire village.”
In response to the U.S. State Department report, the Myanmar government released a statement rejecting the allegations.
"These reports are all same old tunes based on groundless facts and figures, which came from unscrupulous persons with the aim of damaging the image of the country," the Foreign Ministry said in a press release carried by state-run newspapers.
"The government of the Union of Myanmar, therefore, categorically rejects the one-sided assessment of the U.S. on religious freedom of Myanmar since it is based on unfounded facts and is nothing more than a politically motivated document aimed at interfering in the internal affairs of Myanmar,” the statement said.
Last month, on Oct. 26-30, Church World Service along with its partner organizations hosted a day-long conference titled, “Burma: Looking Forward,” at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. During the conference, attendants discussed the issue of displaced people of Burma, humanitarian issues in the country and other topics.
