UN Special Rapporteur Addresses Conflict and Upcoming Election in Myanmar [1]
In a statement [3] released on September 22, 2020, Thomas Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur, “called for an immediate ceasefire in Rakhine State [Myanmar].” Andrews highlighted the rising number of children who had been killed in the conflict and the impact of COVID-19 on the upcoming election. The press release states “that the government is imposing ‘vague and subjective criteria’ to restrict the right to freedom of expression for political candidates” and that Andrews has “‘seen no evidence that …[it] is … prepared to facilitate the right to vote for hundreds of thousands of … Rohingya.’” In addition to his call for a ceasefire, Andrews “urged the government … to cooperate with the International Criminal Court and the Independent Invesigative [sic] Mechanism for Myanmar” and “call[ed] on the international community to provide greater public health support” to Myanmar as it continues to fight COVID-19. This is not the first time the UN has called attention to human rights violations in Myanmar; a JURIST article [4] notes that “[t]he UN Human Rights Council has been investigating Myanmar’s failure to prevent genocide … since 2019.”