Myanmar
bars, blacklists US photographer at Yangon Airport
By ATHENS
ZAW ZAW | AFP
YANGON —
Myanmar has blacklisted a prominent US photographer and prevented him from
attending his own exhibition about stateless people, which would have featured
pictures of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority.
Award-winning
documentary photographer Greg Constantine, who asked to keep where he lives
private, said he was stopped at Yangon airport on Friday and told he was on a
"blacklist".
Constantine
said he believed it was linked to his work documenting the lives of the
Rohingya, whose status is a major flashpoint in Myanmar.
Many in
Myanmar country revile the million-strong Muslim minority, who are based in
western Rakhine state, and vigorously oppose any move to grant them
citizenship.
"I've
done a significant amount of work on stateless people in Rakhine... I can only
speculate that that would be the reason, or one of the reasons, why I would be
on this blacklist right now," Constantine told AFP.
Immigration
officials confirmed that the photographer had been blacklisted but refused to
say why.
"I
cannot tell you what kind of blacklist he is on," said Ye Tun Oo, the
director of the immigration department.
Constantine's
Nowhere People, which explores the lives of stateless people in 18 countries
around the world, had been due to open in Yangon on Wednesday but has been
temporarily postponed.
The
exhibition was to include images of Rohingya in the destitute camps where many
have languished for years and face severe restrictions on their movement and
access to basic services.
Hatred
towards the minority has intensified since the government blamed Rohingya
militants for deadly raids on police border posts last month.
Troops have
locked down the area since, sending more than 15,000 people fleeing and killing
at least 69 people in their hunt for the attackers.
The
government has rejected reports that troops have shot unarmed Rohingya
civilians, raped women and torched homes.