YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Enumerators fanned out across Myanmar on Sunday for a census that has been widely criticized for stoking religious and ethnic tensions, after the government denied members of a long-persecuted Muslim minority the right to identify themselves as “Rohingya.”

And administrators in some parts of the country — including rebel controlled areas in Kachin and Wa states — said they were barring census takers because they worry the count will be used for political purposes.