Myanmar remains country of ‘grave concern’ in US religious freedom report

The committee’s report, a comprehensive assessment that tracks restrictions on religious freedom and provides recommendations to the US government for protecting human rights around the world, came out on August 10.

Since the committee’s inception in 1998, Myanmar has remained a Tier 1 “country of particular concern”. The four “race and religion” laws passed under then-president U Thein Sein’s rule, and military tensions with ethnic dissident groups in upper Myanmar, continue to restrict the rights and freedoms of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State and Christians in Kachin and Shan states respectively, the report said.

Introducing the report, David Saperstein, US ambassador-at-large, said the committee “expressed grave concern that large numbers of them [Rohingyas] have had citizenship stripped from them … Often they are in camps where they can’t return to their home communities, they can’t establish mosques.” (Courtesy of mmtimes.com)