Threatened UN expert expecting new Myanmar invite
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GENEVA (AFP, Reuters) - A UN rights expert, who was harshly criticised and threatened during a recent visit to Myanmar, said Wednesday she expected the government to invite her back and to ensure her safety.
"I am convinced I will be invited back," United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Yanghee Lee told reporters in Geneva.
Lee, who visited Myanmar in January and who presented her report on the country to the UN Human Rights Council this week, has angered Yangon with her warnings that the country seems to be "backtracking" in its democratic reforms.
The South Korean national's advocacy for the rights of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority has also infuriated many Buddhists.
During her visit in January, hundreds of monks rallied against her, and the country's most notorious hardline monk Wirathu called her a "whore in our country".
And following the recent publication of her report, the monk issued a threat on his Facebook page.
"Oh dear patriots, let us find ways and means to teach the beastly woman a lesson," he wrote.
While acknowledging there is "a great possibility" someone might try to act on his call, Lee said Wednesday she was confident the Myanmar government "will see that my security and the security of my staff is their utmost priority."
A spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein meanwhile said he was "disgusted" with the new attack on Lee.
The human rights chief condemned Wirathu's comments "as a clear incitement to violence and he wants to stress that it is absolutely the responsibility of the government of Myanmar to deal with threats of violence and to ensure the safety of the special rapporteur," spokesman Rupert Colville said.
"It is totally unacceptable that a special rapporteur appointed by the international community ... should be subjected to this," he added.
Lee told reporters there was "always a great possibility" that her personal safety could be jeopardised.
"I have confidence in the Myanmar government that they will see that my security and the security of my staff is their utmost priority. But it doesn't mean that any individual couldn't do something very crazy.
"However, I am disappointed that the government has not disassociated itself from these remarks, and the government has blamed me for leaving the country with this distrust, discord and incitement."
Under Myanmar law, all slogans and logos for any rally must be cleared with authorities beforehand, Lee said, so the government could have prevented Wirathu's 10-minute-longinflammatory speech.
Wirathu was jailed for 25 years in 2003 for distributinganti-Muslim pamphlets that incited communal riots in hishometown, where a Buddhist mob killed at least 10 Muslims, buthe was freed in 2011 during an amnesty for politcal prisoners.
A Reuters investigation in 2013 found that organised attacks on Muslims in late 2012 were led by Rakhine nationalists incited by Buddhist monks and sometimes abetted by local security forces.
The mass demonstrations against Lee during her visit are all the more remarkable since any demonstration in the country requires government approval.
In her report she to the Human Rights Council Lee cautioned she was seeing "a growing atmosphere of fear, distrust and hostility," in Myanmar.
She highlighted the "dire" situation in Rakhine State, where many Muslim Rohingya wallow in "abysmal" camps.
She warned that acute tensions between Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine, which has been wracked by violence since 2012, could have "far-reaching implications".
Myanmar representative Maung Wai vehemently objected to her report, saying "all the considerable progress we have made is either ignored or treated as insignificant."
