UN envoy’s meeting with Rohingya Muslims blocked

YANGON, Myanmar: A UN human rights envoy says her whirlwind visit to Myanmar was marred by disappointments: She was barred from meeting long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims. Talks with several high-ranking officials were denied or canceled at the last minute. And when she met with government critics, security officials were there, quietly snapping pictures.
Yanghee Lee was in the Southeast Asian nation to assess the human rights situation ahead of general elections — the second vote since the former dictatorship began its bumpy transition to democracy just a few years ago.
But she said the lack of access and serious disruptions to her program made it impossible to fulfill her mandate.
It was Lee’s third trip to Myanmar since being appointed the country’s UN special rapporteur on human rights just over a year ago. The challenges have increased with each visit. She has waded into sensitive subjects, most notably the treatment of the country’s 1.3 million Rohingya.
Though she asked to visit for 10 days, as she has in the past, she was only given five this time. “I am also disappointed that requested meetings and visits were not granted or suddenly changed or canceled at the last minute without prior notice,” she said.
Lee said she had received credible information that some of her interlocutors had been photographed by security officials. “I also heard that some individuals I met with in previous visits were monitored, photographed and later questioned.”
During Lee’s last visit in January, comments about the persecution of Rohingya drew a stinging response from the government, which accused her of bias and infringing on state sovereignty. Though many members of the religious minority arrived generations ago, most people in this predominantly Buddhist nation of 50 million say all Rohingya are migrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
Attacks by machete-wielding mobs in 20 12 sent more than a quarter-million Rohingya either fleeing by boat or to camps in Rakhine state, where they have limited access to adequate health care or education and are denied freedom of movement.