Suu Kyi ‘angered because interviewer was Muslim’
Myanmar's leading politician Aung San Suu Kyi was reportedly angered by the fact that a BBC presenter who grilled her during an interview back in 2013 was a Muslim.
For years, the politician has been widely promoted by Western media as a pro-democracy icon and a symbol of virtuousness but new revelations have left even her most ardent supporters shocked.
Suu Kyi reportedly lost her composure after being challenged by BBC presenter Mishal Husain on the massacres of Muslims in Myanmar.
“No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim,” Suu Kyi was heard saying off air after the tense interview conducted in October 2013 about violence against minority Rohingyas in Myanmar.
The revelation was made on Friday by Peter Popham, a journalist with The Independent newspaper and author of a newly published book titled “The Lady and The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle for Freedom.”
Popham said the information about the outburst was relayed to him by a “reliable” source.
During the interview, Suu Kyi refused to condemn the massacre of Rohingya Muslims, claiming that the violence was “not ethnic cleansing.”
“Muslims have been targeted but also Buddhists have been subject to violence. There’s fear on both sides,” she said instead.
The Nobel peace laureate, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the November’s 2015 elections, has been criticized for her failure to condemn the persecution of Muslims.
Suu Kyi's vague attitude towards the violence suffered by Myanmar’s Muslim minority has alarmed even her most devoted fans.
Most of the country’s huge Buddhist majority dislikes its small Muslim community with a passion, so it is thought Suu Kyi did not want to alienate her supporters.
Rohingya Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Myanmar for many years. A large number of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in attacks by extremist Buddhists since the country’s independence in 1948.
Myanmar’s government has fallen short of protecting the rights of the Rohingya Muslims while refusing to recognize them as citizens.
Rohingyas have been recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted communities.
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