refugees," from countries such as Burma.
US-based Christian Freedom International (CFI) said it had established that thousands of people fleeing the military dictatorship in Burma, also known as Myanmar, are still awaiting asylum in overcrowded refugee camps across the border in neighboring Thailand.
"There is a growing hostility in Washington against persecuted Christian asylum seekers and Christian refugees like the Karen and Karenni of Burma," said CFI President Jim Jacobson in remarks to BosNewsLife.
"While we see so many people allowed to enter the country illegally, our government is shutting its doors to persecuted Christian asylum seekers and refugees. It is not fair; it is not right. There is a definite double standard here," added Jacobson, a former White House official.
WAITING KAREN
US officials have said however they take human rights violations seriously and that America will remain an open country. Among those waiting is 20-year old Rie Htoo, an ethnic Karen who was born in Burma.
"My mother died when I was seven, my father died when I was 15," Rie Htoo recalled in a statement published by CFI. "I became a Christian when I was young, explained Rie Htoo, who also has 2 brothers and 3 sisters. "In April 2002 we came to the refugee camp [because] we had so many problems in Burma, our parents were dead. There was no future, no hope for us."
She claimed that government backed forces "would come to our village [and] ask us to do things, they would point a gun at us and tell us to work. They would beat us. Life in Burma was very hard."
SPDC POWER
The current military regime, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has been accused of attacks against predominantly Christian communities including the Karen,
Karenni, Shan, Mon, Chin, Kachin, Arakan and Rohingya.
Over one million people are believed to be internally displaced, and since 1996 over 2,500 villages have been destroyed in eastern Burma alone, CSW said. Attacks against Christians have been linked to fear within the regime to lose its power base to what ic calls a "Western" religion.
Rie Htoo arrived in Thailand with her brothers and sisters after "a long dangerous journey" and said that although "we don’t have parents we are happier in the camps."
As refugees Rie Htoo and her have been trying to come to America. "We signed up with the [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees last December to be resettled to another country," said Rie Htoo. "We can’t go back to Burma [because] the Burmese soldiers would kill us…There is no future in the refugee camps. I want to go to America to learn more so I can come back and help my people."
BIBLE SCHOOL
Rie Htoo recently graduated from a CFI Bible School near the Thai area of Mae Hong Song and wants to dedicate her lift "to the Lord."
But the US Department of Homeland Security is refusing to allow Rie Htoo and others like her to enter the US, because of national security concerns, CFI claimed.
"Fortunately, Canada, Australia, and other nations have opened their doors to the Karen refugees." the organization added. Jacobson also expressed disappointment with the US government for not offering Abdul Rahman asylum, a man in Afghanistan who faced the death penalty after converting from Islam to Christianity. (With previous reports from BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and BosNewsLife Research).
