UN expert airs human rights concerns before Myanmar vote
03 November, 2020
An unbiased human rights expert dealing with the US is contacting Myanmar's government and military leadership to avoid persecuting supporters of the opposition ahead of Sunday's (Nov 8) general election.
Thomas Andrews, a former US congressman from Maine who's the UN special investigator on Myanmar, needed free and fair elections but expressed concerns about the denial of the vote to Rohingya Muslims and others predicated on race, ethnicity or religion.
Andrews, who as an unbiased "special rapporteur" will not speak for the UN, said the Myanmar army is using a penal code set up under colonialist Britain in 1861 to "secure journalists, students and others for exercising their basic right to free expression".
He also lamented allegations of state censorship of some candidates.
Myanmar's electoral commission has cancelled voting in a number of places facing bouts of unrest.
Michelle Bachelet, who heads the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has also expressed serious concerns about the human rights situation in Myanmar prior to the vote, including violations of the proper to political participation, particularly for minority groups.
The last general election in 2015 taken to power Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy after a lot more than five decades of military rule.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and her government have faced international condemnation for allowing security forces to handle widespread abuses of the Rohingya minority, driving a lot more than 700,000 to seek safety in neighbouring Bangladesh.
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