Persecution escalating in Burma, warns religious freedom monitor

Christians in Burma, also known as Myanmar, are facing persecution, according to a new report from the federal government.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has issued a warning that Burma in Southeast Asia is a “disintegrating nation” with a military-controlled government that is systematically targeting ethnic and religious minorities, including Burma’s Christian population.

In its report released at the end of October, the USCIRF noted that since the 2021 coup which saw the removal of Burma’s elected government, “the Burmese military and its State Administration Council (SAC) have pursued an aggressive military campaign to maintain authority, which has included targeting religious leaders, communities, and sites, and has exacerbated social tensions between ethnoreligious communities.”

According to estimates from the United Nations, since the military takeover more than 5,300 civilians have died and more than 3.3 million have been displaced in the ongoing conflict.

Additionally, noted the USCIRF, with the government in chaos and various ethnic, religious, and other resistance groups vying for territorial control, Burma’s military and the SAC have lost control of approximately 86% of the country’s territory and 67% of the population.

In response, the military government has targeted religious minorities, including Burmese Christian leaders.  

“In April 2023, the military sentenced Reverend Dr. Hkalam Samson, a Kachin Baptist Convention leader, to six years’ imprisonment on manufactured charges of terrorism, unlawful association, and inciting opposition to the regime,” the USCIRF reported.  

After a year of imprisonment, Samson was released in April 2024, but was almost immediately arrested and held for another three months before being released once more. 

Meanwhile, noted the USCIRF, attacks on Christian and other religious leaders by “unknown assailants” continue, with no government investigation or response. Those attacks included the March 18, 2024 shooting of a Kachin Baptist pastor in Mogaung Township by unidentified gunmen, and the April 12, shooting by masked assailants of a Catholic priest overseeing a Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Mohnyin village in Burma’s Kachin State. 

On June 19, “the military shot and killed Bhaddanta Muninda Bhivamsa, a senior Buddhist monk, in Mandalay Region, allegedly mistaking his vehicle as belonging to resistance forces,” noted the USCIRF report. “It is unclear whether the monk was intentionally targeted.” 

Meanwhile, Burma’s military-controlled SAC continues what the USCIRF refers to as a “policy of Bamar-Buddhist nationalism,” which has “historically targeted ethnoreligious minorities such as Chin and Kachin Protestants and other Christians, Karenni Catholics, and the predominantly Muslim Rohingya.” 

An estimated 220 churches were destroyed across Burma between February 2021 and December 2023, the report said, including up to 100 Catholic parishes in Kayah State.  

In addition to the internal displacement of more than three million Burmese refugee, tens of thousands have fled to neighboring Bangladesh and India, while others are making their way to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. 

In the conclusion to its report, the USCIRF said it has called on the U.S. State Department to designate Burma as a “Country of Particular Concern for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious, freedom,” and has recommended that the U.S. government engage with Burmese opposition groups to help address issues of religious freedom and to pave the way for the restoration of displaced Burmese refugees.