Arakan News Agency
Rights groups and activists have criticised the Myanmar government and United Nations for not recognising the Muslim Rohingya minority as an ethnic group in the country’s first nationwide census in 30 years.
Though observers praised the census – which cost $50m – released on Friday, as an important socioeconomic indicator, they said that leaving Rohingya Muslims off the list of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups is a sign that it has no intention of recognising them as citizens.
“The exclusion of the Rohingya from the census is an unacceptable capitulation by the international community to the starkly racist and repressive policies of the Burmese government,” said David Mathieson, a senior researcher on Myanmar for Human Rights Watch.
“It poisons an otherwise important and urgently needed census for Burma’s development.”
Where the facts presented in the release of the census gives an overview of Myanmar’s long unknown population, it also omitted key indicators, including the total composition of the ethnic groups that live in it, choosing instead to release such data after general elections are held in November.
In a speech at the launch of the census, Myanmar President Thein Sein made no mention of the omission of the Rohingya, a long-persecuted community of nearly 1.3 million.
Source : AlJazeera
