![Home [alt + 0]](images/nav/odlogoen.gif)
Print this pageMyanmar
Burma is a police state. The army has ruled the country for many decades. There is limited freedom of religion. Most of the country’s Christians belong to ethnic minorities. Army campaigns against these minorities often have a side-effect of persecuting Christians. The situation for Christians in Rangoon seems to be okay, but it is difficult to assess the situation in the countryside. The regime restricts travel of foreigners. At the end of September 2007, the regime reacted with its usual iron-fist approach to quench the pro-democracy demonstrations in Burma. Dozens were killed, and hundreds if not thousands were arrested. What was most remarkable in this event was the prominent role Buddhist clergy played in defying the regime and the incredible hardness of the regime against the monks. It seems that the "automatic" link between the regime and the state-controlled form of Buddhism has now disappeared. Christians mostly stayed aloof of the demonstrations, because they usually don’t have the same kind of protection Buddhist monks have. Now even that protection seems to have gone, so Christians were wise to not participate too obviously. The number of arrested Christians was less than a year ago, hence the "improvement."
Situation January 2008