Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday said it was important not to “exaggerate” the plight of the nation’s persecuted Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom have been barred from Sunday’s landmark polls.
Suu Kyi has faced international censure for not speaking out in support of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority who have been hardest hit by deadly bouts of communal violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar at a time of surging religious nationalism.
The general elections in the former junta-run state are being touted as the fairest in decades, yet hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from western Rakhine state have been disenfranchised.