Myanmar has again been listed as one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom as places of worship are repeatedly destroyed by junta troops.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s annual report on Wednesday includes Myanmar on its list of 17 countries of particular concern, alongside Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The report said religious freedom in Myanmar continued to decline significantly in the last year.
Since the 2021 coup, junta troops have destroyed nearly 200 religious buildings, including 85 churches in Chin State and 40 Buddhist monasteries, a nunnery, six churches and three mosques in Sagaing Region, the report stated.
In 2023, the junta continued to target, occupy and destroy places of worship, particularly those belonging to religious minorities, it said.
The junta bombed and then occupied Christ the King Cathedral in Kayah State in November, mirroring previous army occupations of Baptist churches in Chin State, the report added.
The regime’s campaign of arson against villages has not spared Buddhist monasteries, despite junta boss Min Aung Hlaing’s attempts to promote himself as a protector of Buddhism and his regime as representing the Buddhist majority.
Observers said junta soldiers were following orders from Naypyitaw when they burned down Buddhist monasteries and churches in Chin and Kayah and Magwe and Sagaing regions.
The US commission listed Myanmar as a country of particular concern in 2020 under the National League for Democracy government, citing the military’s crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
It called for the US government to engage with the pro-democracy opposition and for the US Congress to implement the Burma Act. The legislation was passed in December 2022 to authorize non-lethal aid to anti-regime forces, including justice and accountability mechanisms for the Rohingya and other minorities.
