Burma’s future holds both promise and challenges. Along with projected positive growth rates, burgeoning foreign investment, and increased stature on the global stage, Burma’s many religious and ethnic minorities face persecution, discrimination, and deprivation of basic rights that both state and non-state actors have perpetrated. Burma’s positive trajectory will not be sustainable unless its leaders reverse decades of ill-treatment of religious and ethnic minorities and protect their freedom of religion or belief.
Please join the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) as USCIRF releases two reports highlighting Burma’s serious religious freedom challenges.
Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma highlights the pervasive and longstanding persecution and discrimination Christians face that have persisted, often unreported, for generations.
Suspended in Time: The Ongoing Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma details the persecution of Rohingya Muslims’ resulting from government-directed abuses and/or government indifference to discrimination and violence that has killed hundreds, displaced thousands, and destroyed hundreds of religious properties since 2012.
Burma at the Brink: Religious Freedom Violations Threaten Its Future
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Murrow/White Room, 13th floor, Washington DC
With opening remarks from USCIRF Commissioners, the event will feature:
- Rachel Fleming, independent human rights research and activist, and author of Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma
- Susan Hayward, Director – Religion and Inclusive Societies at the United States Institute of Peace
- Tina Mufford, Senior Policy Analyst – U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Event open to the public and media. For more information, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or 202-786-0615.
