(Vatican Radio) The United Nations said it was deeply concerned by the refusal of
census-takers in Burma to record members of the Rohingya Muslim population. The group
has long faced persecution in the Buddhist-majority country, and have been denied
citizenship since a 1982 citizenship law was enacted.
The country, also called
Myanmar, has only recently had a civilian government, after decades of military rule.
Burma
Campaign UK issued a statement on Wednesday saying the United Nations Population Fund
and international donors went ahead with support for Burma's census despite numerous
organizations inside and outside Burma warning about the dangers of going ahead with
the count.
“In a normal country having a census would be a sensible thing to
do, to find out how many people are in the country and what their needs are,” said
Mark Farmaner, the Director of Burma Campaign, UK. “But in the normal environment
in Burma where you have a country moving away from direct military rule, but still
having a very authoritarian government that people don’t trust, and where you have
got a lot of ethnic tensions, my organization…was very concerned that this census
would trigger more ethnic tensions, particularly against the Rohingya Muslims.”
Farmaner
told Vatican Radio the international community should stop providing financial and
technical support for the census.
“We don’t want to give anymore legitimacy
or support to a census which is discriminating against the Rohingya,” he said.
Listen
to the full interview by Charles Collins with Mark Farmaner: