Christians in Myanmar face worsening persecution as churches destroyed and clergy targeted

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has renewed its call for urgent international motion as Myanmar’s military intensifies its campaign against Christian and other minor religious communities.

CSW and the Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Network report that for the reason that February 2021 coup, Myanmar’s armed forces have deliberately destroyed greater than 220 churches and killed at the least 85 clerics, mainly through airstrikes, shelling, and torture.

Chin State, certainly one of Myanmar’s few Christian-majority regions, has develop into a selected focus of military violence.

Entire congregations have been displaced as villages are bombed and places of worship reduced to rubble in what CSW describes as a “scorched-earth” strategy.

In some areas, soldiers have looted places of worship, planted landmines near them, and used religious buildings as temporary barracks. The junta’s attacks have also reached urban areas.

In portions of Rakhine and Yangon, house church gatherings have been banned since 2023, and Christian communities are actually being compelled handy over weekly attendance lists and worship timetables to police officials.

Buddhist monasteries, mosques, and Rohingya Muslim communities have also come under attack.

CSW drew attention to the military’s weaponisation of the February 2024 conscription law, which has been used to forcibly recruit Rohingya Muslims — a community already subject to genocide proceedings on the International Court of Justice.

The organisation reported that Rohingya civilians are being forcibly taken and exploited as human shields in combat zones, intensifying inter-ethnic hostilities and further devastating their already fragile communities.

Discrimination has also prolonged into disaster recovery. After a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar in March, the federal government’s Religious Administration Office of Mandalay announced an order permitting only “original design and dimensions” rebuilding of damaged churches and mosques — a restriction not applied to Buddhist temples.

The restriction has left many minority religious buildings, especially older Christian ones, in disrepair or spoil.

Meanwhile, the junta’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, has sought to portray himself as a protector of Buddhism while using nationalist militias resembling Pyu Saw Htee to border Christians and Muslims as foreign-backed enemies of the state.

CSW warns that this tactic — a part of the military’s so-called “Four Cuts” strategy — goals to weaken community-based networks that provide food, shelter, and humanitarian support to the displaced.

The Founder President of CSW, Mervyn Thomas, said that the present situation for Christians and other religious minorities in Myanmar “cries out for urgent international motion”.

“The military junta must end all indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian targets, especially places of worship, schools, and hospitals,” he said.

Mr Thomas called for the immediate repeal of the 2024 conscription law, which he said was “getting used as a tool of persecution and to fuel the civil war”.

“Discriminatory” administrative orders that “block religious minorities from rebuilding their places of worship and freely practising their faith” also needs to be repealed, he said.

“The international community must apply targeted sanctions on the provision of jet fuel to the Myanmar military and supply humanitarian aid that bypasses the junta and flows on to local civil society and faith-based organisations,” said Mr Thomas.

“Finally, states must support international accountability mechanisms, including emerging Universal Jurisdiction cases, resembling the recent efforts within the Philippines, to analyze these attacks on religious sites as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

He added, “As Christians around the globe prayed yesterday for the persecuted church, believers in Myanmar proceed to face brutal repression. The junta’s deliberate targeting of churches and pastors should be recognised for what it’s — an assault on faith itself.”