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Myanmar election neither free nor fair: Pundit

A Myanmar policeman is posted at the entrance of a polling center in Yangon on November 8, 2015. (©AFP)

Press TV has interviewed Raza Kazim, with the Islamic Human Rights Commission from London, and Fredrick Peterson, a senior congressional defense advisor from Richmond, to discuss the general election in Myanmar.

Kazim says the Myanmar election seems not to be “free and fair” because Rohingya Muslims have not been allowed to take part in the voting process.

The Islamic activist adds the motto of democracy has been used in Myanmar as an instrument for repression and marginalization of the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities.

Myanmar’s government tries to hide the torture and persecution of Rohngya Muslims, who have been killed and forced to flee their residential areas under the current government’s nose, he notes.

Pointing to the situation of minorities in Myanmar during the junta government, he argues that during the junta era the Rohingya Muslims have not been forced to flee to the sea, adding that the situation of minorities has got worse after the junta rule.

Myanmar’s opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi continued the process of marginalization of minorities in the Southeast Asian country, Kazim maintains.

Peterson, for his part, believes there are still deep ethnic hostilities, religious animosity and political rivalry in Myanmar, adding that the emerging democracy encounters several problems, but it is in the path of improvement.

He also agrees that foreign pressure is needed to push Myanmar’s government “to include all” ethnic groups and minorities in different elections.

 


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