chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7058&eng=y
ROMA -In the West, Buddhism is synonymous with peace, compassion, wisdom, and ecumenical brotherhood. This is true also in the case of its most noted figure, the Dalai Lama.
Moreover, Buddhism has a reputation as a persecuted religion, and Tibet is the emblem of this.
But the latest Report on Religious Liberty in the World, released in Rome on June 25, 2004 by Aid to the Church in Need, contains striking evidence of a contrary nature.
In almost all of the Asian states in which Buddhism is the majority religion, there is cruel religious repression. And this strikes all of the non-Buddhist religions.
The most egregious case is, perhaps, that of Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. The June edition of the American monthly magazine “Crisis” published an account by Benedict Rogers of the implacable persecution of the Christian and Muslim religious minorities, with many forced conversions to Buddhism.
The U.S. Department of State classifies Myanmar among the six worst oppressors of religious liberty in the world. In another ranking of the religious persecution of Christians, carried out by Open Doors, the third place is occupied by another mainly Buddhist country, Laos.
Here is a summary, in alphabetical order, of the states in Asia in which Buddhism is the prevailing religion. It contains references to the religious situation in each of them, taken from the Report 2004 of Aid to the Church in Need.
Here is a link to Aid to the Church in Need, the international Catholic body founded in 1947 by Belgian Norbertine monk Werenfried van Straaten, the Italian section of which publishes each year in Rome a report on religious liberty in the world, country by country:
> Aid to the Church in Need
And this is the report by Benedict Rogers on religious persecution in Myanmar, published in the June 2004 edition of the U.S. monthly “Crisis,” edited by Deal Hudson:
> Faith Unbroken: Persecuted Christians In Burma
Rogers works for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a charity for civil rights based in London. His most recent book is “Land Without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma´s Karen People”, Monarch Books, 2004.
For the latest news on the religious situation in the Asian countries mentioned above, see the agency “AsiaNews” directed by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, with stories each day in Italian, English, and Chinese:
> AsiaNews
See also the Norwegian agency “Forum 18,” which specializes in documenting the violation of religious liberties:
> Forum 18
