United Nations human rights experts have urged the government to investigate allegations of serious abuses perpetrated by security forces against northern Rakhine State’s Muslim majority as accusations of misconduct continued to mount this week.
Rakhine State’s volatile north, which borders Bangladesh, has been on virtual lockdown since October 9 attacks on Border Guard Police posts in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships plunged the region into further turmoil.
“In the aftermath of the attacks, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has rightly called for proper investigations to be conducted and for no one to be accused until solid evidence is obtained,” said the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar’s human rights situation, Yanghee Lee, in a statement from Geneva on October 24.
“Instead, we receive repeated allegations of arbitrary arrests as well as extrajudicial killings occurring within the context of the security operations conducted by the authorities in search of the alleged attackers.”
While the state counsellor has pledged that suspected militants would be handled lawfully, both the military and the police force operating in Rakhine State are constitutionally beyond her control.
Rohingya Muslims advocacy groups and human rights monitors have accused security forces of torching Muslim villages, extrajudicial killings and rape as they carry out what the government is referring to as “clearance operations”.
With access to the area severely restricted, independently verifying much of the information being provided by state media, human rights groups and government officials has been difficult. State media has confirmed that security forces have killed at least 30 people in the October 9 border raids and the manhunt that has followed, but referred to the slain as “violent armed attackers”.
“What troubles me most is the lack of access for a proper assessment of the true picture of the situation there at the present moment,” Ms Lee said.
Ref: Myanmar Times News
