The News

Rapporteur ‘Disappointed’ UN Rights Panel Divided on Myanmar

The News

Yanghee Lee, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, delivers her report, during the 34th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, March 13, 2017

GENEVA – A U.N. expert on Myanmar says she’s “disappointed” at the lack of “appetite” at the Human Rights Council to back her call for the creation of Commission of Inquiry into alleged crimes against the Rohingya minority.

Special rapporteur Yanghee Lee said she’s hearing of a difference of opinion “within even the European Union” about the best path forward in dealing with rights abuses in Myanmar.

Lee addressed the 47-member council in Geneva on Monday.

Yanghee Lee, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, delivers her report, during the 34th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, March 13, 2017. Photo: Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi, via AP

She told a news agency that a domestic investigative panel focusing on Rakhine state was “flawed” and another led by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan didn’t have an all-encompassing mandate.

Lee has been denied access to parts of Myanmar she hoped to visit, and expressed concern about violence affecting civilians in Kachin and Shan states.