The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called on the United States and the United Nations to mount an international effort to hold the Burmese military regime accountable for its violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
The bipartisan commission’s Oct. 4 written request urged the U.S. government to take the lead by working for condemnation by the U.N. Security Council and Burma’s neighbors of the junta’s deadly suppression of dissent. Burma also is known as Myanmar.
The call by USCIRF came after the regime put down protests in late September by killing some protesters and jailing others. The junta reported 10 deaths among dissenters, but opposing groups estimated a toll of as many as 200, plus about 6,000 arrests, according to The Associated Press. The confrontation began in mid-August when citizens began protesting against a rise in fuel prices, but it intensified when thousands of Buddhist monks joined the demonstrations against the junta.
The State Department has included Burma on its list of “countries of particular concern” (CPC) ever since it began issuing an annual report on international religious freedom in 1999.
In May, USCIRF urged the State Department to retain Burma as a CPC, a category reserved for governments that have “engaged in or tolerated systemic and egregious violations of religious freedom.” The State Department has yet to release its CPC list this year. (BP)
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