Myanmar Government Orders State Media Not To Use ‘Rohingya’

The Myanmar government has ordered state-run media not to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority group that lives in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state by the divisive term “Rohingya” during a visit by a United Nations human rights official.

The Ministry of Information’s letter dated June 16 instructed official news outlets to describe the 1.1 million Rohingya who live in Rakhine as the “Muslim community in Rakhine state” during a visit by Yanghee Lee, the U.N.’s special envoy on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, who is visiting the country from June 19 to July 2.

“We submitted the phrase ‘Muslim community in Rakhine’ to the United Nations, and we will continue using it in the Burmese language in Myanmar,” said Myo Myint Aung, deputy permanent secretary at the ministry of information.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto national leader, told Lee on Monday during a meeting in the capital Naypyidaw that the government will avoid using the term “Rohingya,” Reuters reported.

Lee is visiting Yangon, Naypyidaw, Sittwe, Myitkyina and Lashio to compile a report to submit to the U.N. General Assembly in September.

The country’s majority Buddhists refuse to use the term Rohingya to refer to members of the group, whom they consider to be “Bengalis,” illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh, though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The government does not consider the Rohingya to be full citizens of Myanmar and denies them basic rights, freedom of movement, and access to social services and education.

More than 120,000 Rohingya, who were displaced during communal violence with ethnic Buddhists in 2012, currently live in displaced persons camps in Rakhine state, while thousands of others have risked their lives at sea in an effort to flee persecution.