AP, Yangon :
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, on Wednesday to protest a government decision to allow people without full citizenship, including members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, to vote in an upcoming constitutional referendum.
Most Muslim Rohingya are not citizens, and prejudice against them is high in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
Parliament plans to debate several constitutional amendments. It recently approved a proposal by President Thein Sein to allow people with temporary identification cards, such as Rohingya, to vote in a referendum tentatively planned for May.
Communal tensions have led to violence in recent years which left at least 280 people dead and 140,000 homeless, mostly Muslims confined to squalid camps in the western state of Rakhine.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, on Wednesday to protest a government decision to allow people without full citizenship, including members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, to vote in an upcoming constitutional referendum.
Most Muslim Rohingya are not citizens, and prejudice against them is high in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
Parliament plans to debate several constitutional amendments. It recently approved a proposal by President Thein Sein to allow people with temporary identification cards, such as Rohingya, to vote in a referendum tentatively planned for May.
Communal tensions have led to violence in recent years which left at least 280 people dead and 140,000 homeless, mostly Muslims confined to squalid camps in the western state of Rakhine.
