USCIRF Urges Obama To Raise Religious Freedom Issues On Visit To Burma

On Saturday, President Obama leaves on a 4 day trip to Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. (USA Today).  On Wednesday, in advance of the trip, Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom wrote the President urging him to raise with Burma issues of religious freedom and ethnic and communal violence. The letter (full text) particularly emphasizes the restrictions and violence faced by the Rohingya Muslim minority, as well as the persecution of ethnic minority Chin Christians in the states of Kachin and Shan.