"The military junta shows no sign of diverting from a long trend of discriminating against religious minorities. the Government imposed some restrictions on certain religious minorities...The Government imposed some restrictions on the religious freedom of both Christian and Islamic groups, and individual Christians and Muslims experienced some discrimination by the State. The Government monitored the activities of members of all religions, including Buddhism, in part because clergy and congregation members in the past have become active politically. Christians and Muslims experienced difficulties in obtaining permission to build places of worship and in importing indigenous-language translations of traditional sacred texts. Through the 1990?s, the Government increasingly has made special efforts to link itself with Buddhism as a means of asserting its own popular legitimacy. State-controlled news media continued frequently to depict or describe junta members paying homage to Buddhist monks, making donations at pagodas throughout the country, officiating at ceremonies to open, improve, restore or maintain pagodas, and organizing ostensibly voluntary "people?s donations" of money, food, and uncompensated labor to build or refurbish Buddhist religious shrines throughout the country..."