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Census shows proportion of Myanmar Muslims unchanged
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Nationalist Buddhist monk Wirathu (center) marches in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar, Sept. 21, 2015. Myanmar's government has denounced an influential Buddhist nationalist group, led by Wirathu, after failing to speaking against it strongly while others were accusing it of using hate speech and inspiring violence against Muslims. (AP/Hkun Lat)
D
ata released by Myanmar's government shows that the proportion of Muslim residents in the overwhelmingly Buddhist country has not substantially increased since the last census three decades ago, contrary to the fears of strident Buddhist nationalists.
The government on Thursday released the details on the religion component of its 2014 census, showing that 87.9 percent of the country's 51.49 million population are Buddhist, while 6.2 percent are Christian, and 4.3 percent Muslim.
Minister of Labor, Immigration and Population Thein Swe says the Rohingya — who are Muslim — were not officially counted because they refused to identify themselves by the official category of Bengali, which implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The 4.3 percent proportion of Muslims is based on a projection that includes the 1.09 million Rohingya.
