According to Reverend Jangmaw Gam Maw, pastor of Pang Mu Church, soldiers from the 33rd battalion of the Burma Army’s 88th Infantry Division burned bibles, destroyed church property, and stole a video player, loudspeakers and villagers’ belongings. The soldiers claimed that the property belonged to a Kachin Independence Army outpost. They also took money from the church donation boxes.

The pastor and over 1,000 church members from Pang Mu village had abandoned the village for Mai Ja Yang IDP camp on 19 November 2011.

On 10 March, Burma Army soldiers disrupted a Christian conference and threatened a Member of Parliament (MP) at gunpoint in western Burma’s Chin State, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO).

More than 1,000 delegates from 80 local branches of the Mara (Chin) Evangelical Church at Sabawngte village, in a remote area of Matupi township, southern Chin State, had gathered for the conference, which had official permission. CHRO reports that several Burma Army soldiers disrupted the meeting and rebuked the village headman for not reporting the event to the army camp. When Pu Van Cin, an MP from the Ethnic National Development Party, saw the soldiers confronting the village headman and tried to intervene, he was threatened at gunpoint.

Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said, “These incidents illustrate that there is still a very long way to go in Burma’s reform process, and for that reason, the international community should be cautious about lifting too many sanctions too quickly. We have seen very welcome progress in Burma at some levels in recent months, but the Burma Army continues to perpetrate grave violations of human rights in the ethnic areas, which include religious discrimination and persecution of minorities. Religious freedom is a fundamental value in any democratic society, and so if the Burmese government is serious about reform, it must protect religious freedom. We urge the international community to monitor the situation closely. While it is certainly right to ease some sanctions in recognition of the progress made, we urge the European Union, the United States and others to do so gradually, step by step, in proportion to the developments on the ground, and to retain some measures until further genuine change is secured. In Rangoon and the urban areas there is atmospheric change, but not yet substantial institutional, legislative and constitutional change that will make reform irreversible. In the ethnic areas, crimes against humanity continue. We call upon President Thein Sein and all reform-minded officials in the Burmese government to take action to end the military’s abuses, and to protect human rights, including religious freedom, for all.”

Soldiers from the Burma Army’s 88th Light Infantry Division attacked the Assemblies of God church in Muk Chyik village, Wai Maw Township on 6 November, injuring several people. The congregation was expelled from the church, and soldiers reportedly looted church donation boxes. The house of one church member, Mr Jumphpawk Hawng Lum, was burned down. At least fifty church members are taken to work as forced porters for the Burma Army.

The pastor of the church, the Reverend Yajawng Hkawng, was severely tortured and is now in hospital. One of the church deacons, Hpalawng Lum Hkawng, who is the youth music team leader, was injured in his leg.

CSW’s East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, “The military in Burma has unleashed yet another wave of terror against civilians in the ethnic states, at a time when the regime is speaking about reform. The regime is perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity. These attacks in Kachin State, involving rape, forced labor, torture, the killings of civilians, and religious persecution are grave violations of international law and must be stopped. Attacking churches where civilians are gathering to pray peacefully is a serious violation of religious freedom. The international community must take immediate action to provide humanitarian assistance to those internally displaced in Kachin State, and to end the culture of impunity which has prevailed in Burma for too long.”

On 14 October, 2011 the Chairman of Maw Wan Ward in Phakant Township, Kachin State sent a letter to local churches, titled “Concerning Christians conducting cultural training”. The letter refers to an order by the General Township Administration Department requiring Christians in Phakant Township to submit a request at least 15 days in advance for permission to conduct “short-term Bible study, Bible study, Sunday school, reading the Bible, fasting prayer, Seasonal Bible study and Rosary of the Virgin Mary Prayer”. A request for permission must be accompanied by recommendations from other departments, and must be submitted to the Township Administration Office.

CSW obtained a copy of the document in Burmese, and a translation, last week. Churches in Burma are already required to obtain permission for any events other than Sunday services, but this new regulation imposes further severe restrictions.

CSW’s East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, “For many years, successive Burmese regimes have suppressed freedom of religion and imposed serious restrictions on Christians and other religious minorities. Christians and Muslims in particular have been the target of discrimination and persecution. It appears that despite changes in rhetoric, there has been no change of attitude, particularly at a local level, on the part of Burmese authorities to religious minorities. Burma is already regarded as one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom, and is one of the US State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern. To impose a requirement on churches and individuals to seek permission to read the Bible, pray, fast and hold a Sunday school is an extreme restriction and an extraordinary further violation of freedom of religion. We urge the Burmese authorities to withdraw this requirement, in Phakant Township and in any other parts of the country where it may have been issued, and to uphold freedom of religion for all the people of Burma. We also urge the Burmese regime to invite the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief to visit the country, and conduct an independent investigation.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is a Christian organisation working for religious freedom through advocacy and human rights, in the pursuit of justice.

NEW DELHI (Compass Direct News) – A recent attack on Christians and church buildings by Burmese soldiers in Kachin state showed that Christian civilians are targeted in the military offensive against insurgents.

“Targeting of Christians is not unusual in Burma’s conflict zones,” Nawdin Lahpai, editor-in-chief of the Kachin News Group, told Compass by phone, referring to the Oct. 16 military firing at a church, detention of a priest and four parishioners, and burning of church property in Kachin state. “The incident reflects the long-time policy of the Buddhist-Burman-majority Burmese government, which discriminates against the ethnic Christian minority.”

About 90 percent of the roughly 56 million people in Burma (also known as Myanmar) are Buddhist, mostly from the Burman ethnic group. Ethnic Kachins – like six other ethnic minorities who live along the country’s borders with China, Thailand and India – have had armed and unarmed groups fighting for independence or autonomy from successive military-led regimes for decades.

Intense fighting between the Burma army and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) began in June. But it’s not just the armed groups that are the target of Burmese troops, said the editor, a Kachin Christian.

In the Oct. 16 attack, about 150 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 438 stormed Nam San Yang village in the Daw Phung Yang area of Bhamo District in Kachin state, which borders China, reported Mizzima, a Delhi-based news organization run by Burmese journalists. Members of a Catholic church who were preparing for Sunday mass heard gunfire and saw soldiers approaching them. They lay on the ground as the army men opened fire at them. No one was hurt.

The soldiers caught Catholic priest Jan Ma Aung Li and four other men.

“They said that all males in the village were people’s militiamen and KIO staff,” Mizzima quoted Aung Li as saying.

The soldiers asked the Christians where the insurgents had stored guns and bombs. When the five detainees said they were not from the KIO, the soldiers kicked them and hit them with gun butts. They ransacked the whole church, apparently to look for weapons and bombs.

“Then they tied our hands with wire and took us away,” the priest told Mizzima. On the way, about 150 more soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 121 joined them. The Christians were forced to carry heavy rucksacks as they walked with the 300 army men. After walking for three hours, they rested at Lawkathama Monastery, where the soldiers and the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, had a brief exchange of fire.

Later, they arrived at a Baptist church, where some soldiers burned the house of the priest, Aung San. The soldiers asked the detainees to tell the KIO that the army was preparing to attack their headquarters in Laiza before releasing them.

When the Christians reached their village, they found their houses burning.

The Kachin editor said religion was a key factor in the Kachin conflict, which dates back to the country’s independence in 1948.

Burma’s seven ethnic states, where most Christians and ethnic minorities live, were administered separately by the British. But ethnic leaders agreed to be incorporated into Burma after the Panglong Agreement was signed in 1947 providing for full autonomy, a share of the national wealth and the right to secession to ethnic states.

But Gen. Aung San – democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi’s father who was the head of the then interim government and who led the signing of the agreement – was assassinated months later. Subsequent governments refused to honor the agreement, but they presumed ethnic states to be part of the new country.

“The government’s policy of Burman-Buddhist domination over minorities started with the country’s first prime minister, U Nu,” the Kachin editor said. The U Nu-led government made Buddhism the state religion in 1961, and that’s when the KIO was formed.

In 1994, the KIO signed a ceasefire agreement with the government. But months before Burma’s first democratic election in two decades in September 2010, the then military-led government asked all armed insurgents to join the border security force. The KIO refused to do so, and the military deemed the ceasefire as void. The army’s offensive followed in June 2011, which has displaced over 30,000 Kachins.

While the majority of Kachins are Christian, Burmese authorities do not allow them to construct new church buildings as non-Burman Buddhist cultural expressions are seen as signs of insurgency.

In a report entitled, “Army Committing Abuses in Kachin State,” released this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW)) quoted a 65-year-old Kachin villager from Sang Gang as saying that when the fighting started in June 2011, the Burmese army uprooted a large Christian cross from a hilltop regarded by the villagers as sacred and used it as a stand for their weapons. The villagers had planned to eventually construct a church building on the site.

A 58-year-old Baptist Christian farmer from Maisakba told HRW how on three occasions. From 2000 to 2009, Burmese authorities forbade his community from constructing a new Christian church, in part because the proposed structure was in the shape of a cross.

The editor said he was worried as the army was increasing military presence also in other ethnic states such as Karen. Burma’s neighbors China, Thailand and India have invested huge sums of money in power generation projects in ethnic states and the Burmese government now wants to end the decades-long insurgency.

“The Kachin conflict might soon expand to the whole ethnic region,” he said.

And when that happens, he added, the suffering of civilians, including Christians, will mount manifold.

KACHIN STATE, MYANMAR (ANS) — Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) www.csw.org.uk , a Christian organization working for religious freedom through advocacy and human rights, is deeply concerned by reports that the Burma Army are directly attacking churches in Kachin State, beating pastors and church members, setting homes alight and raping, torturing and killing civilians.

According to CSW’s sources, on October 16 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 438 seized control of a Roman Catholic Church in Namsan Yang village, Waimaw township, where 23 worshippers, mostly women and elderly people, had gathered for the 8am Sunday service. In a media update, CSW says the worshippers took refuge from the gunfire behind the Maria prayer sanctuary.

CSW said “When the troops saw them, they shot several rounds of bullets into the sanctuary. The Catholic assistant to the priest, 49 year-old father-of-four Jangma Awng Li, decided to speak to the troops as he is fluent in Burmese. He was beaten in his head with a rifle butt, and injured his forehead when he hit a concrete wall. He and four other men were handcuffed and detained by the soldiers.”

CSW went on to say “The troops, who were later joined by soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 121, continued to march through the village shooting, and reached the Baptist church compound in the evening. During the march the detainees, including four from other villages who had been with the troops for two weeks, were used as forced labor. The detainees had to stay with the troops overnight and were temporarily stationed in the Baptist church compound. The whole northern part of village was burned and both church properties were destroyed.”

CSW stated that two days ago, Light Infantry Battalion 121 shot 72-year-old Maru Je Hkam Naw in the arms and legs whilst he was erecting a fence around his house in Namsan Yang village. Houses in Namsan Yang were burned by the Burmese Army and Mr Jangma Awng Li and other detainees, too afraid to return home, fled the village. At least 21 villagers were detained and used for forced labor, and a 19 year-old Rakhine boy was shot dead. His body was burned and thrown into the mine in Namsan Yang where he worked.

CSW also said that on October 18, a 19 year-old girl, Maran Kawbu, was detained, tortured and gang-raped by soldiers from the same battalion in Namsan Yang. Her body was left on the river bank.

CSW added that in Momauk, approximately 500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled the conflict and are seeking temporary accommodation in the church. On 19 October, one man, a Shan farmer named Mr Tintun, was shot dead by soldiers from Light Infantry Brigade 601, while fishing.

CSW’s East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, “These brutal attacks on religious communities and peaceful civilians stand in stark contrast to the regime’s recent rhetoric about reform and peace building. CSW has received numerous reports of rape, torture and killing of civilians in Kachin State by the Burma Army this year. According to international humanitarian law, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, intentionally directing attacks on religious buildings constitutes a war crime and a violation of international law.

“Rape, forced labor and killing civilians on a widespread and systematic basis constitute crimes against humanity. We urge President Thein Sein to call a halt to the military’s attacks on civilians throughout Burma, stop the widespread and systematic violations of human rights, declare a nationwide ceasefire, and enter into a meaningful di alogue process with all the ethnic nationalities and the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi, in pursuit of genuine national reconciliation.

“We urge the international community to mobilise the mechanisms of the United Nations, through the General Assembly, to hold the regime in Burma accountable for these violations of international law, and end these war crimes and crimes against humanity which the regime is perpetrating with impunity.”

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on +44 (0)20 8329 0045 / +44 (0) 78 2332 9663, email kiri@csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk .

The crackdown is of great concern to Christians in Myanmar and a serious violation of religious freedom. Most of the churches meet in homes, and Christians are now left wondering if they will be prohibited from worshipping in their own homes.

Some think it could be the military regime’s response to churches helping with relief for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar’s coast in May 2008.

“The regime does not like the fact that Buddhists have been receiving help from churches, and fears this may possibly result in conversion,” one pastor living in exile said. “It does not want Christianity to grow in Burma. Ultimately, the regime seeks the destruction of Christianity.”

All of the affected churches are in the Yangon Rangoon area. So far, none of the churches led by Gospel for Asia missionaries have been shut down.

“The Lord has enabled us to conduct the worship services in our churches till today, and none of our churches have been shut down,” writes a field correspondent. “By God’s grace, all our missionaries are fine and doing the ministry successfully. Our churches are safe and the ministry is growing day by day. We really thank God for His guidance and protection.”

GFA leaders request prayer for the Lord’s work in Myanmar in these crucial times. Pray that God will put religious freedom on the hearts of its political leaders. Pray for the believers and missionaries, that they will stand firm even in such difficulties. Pray for wisdom for new ways to do the ministry so the Church will continue to grow in Myanmar.

Burmese authorities last week increased restrictions on Christian activity in the capital city of Rangoon and surrounding areas, including the closure of several churches, Compass sources confirmed yesterday.

Orders issued on Jan. 5 had already forced many Christians meeting in residential homes or apartments to cease gathering for worship. Officials last week ordered several major Rangoon churches, including Wather Hope Church, Emmanuel Church and the Assemblies of God Church, to cease holding services and continued enforcing the Jan. 5 ban on meetings held in unauthorized facilities.

Full story at Compass Direct News.