Myanmar slams UN for using term ‘Rohingya’
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Myanmar on Wednesday slammed a United Nations official for using the term Rohingya to describe a persecuted minority that the government refers to as Bengali, which implies they are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in Rakhine state in the west of the predominantly Buddhist country.
The government is carrying out a controversial citizenship verification process, which requires Rohingya to list their identities as Bengali.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said conditions were “abysmal” in camps where almost 140,000 Rohingya remain after being displaced in clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry criticized her remarks on Wednesday in a press release published in a state-backed newspaper.
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