UN investigator encouraged by Myanmar leaders

(October 20, 2011) Recent steps by Myanmar's new government could improve the country's human rights situation and deepen its transition to democracy, a United Nations investigator said on Wednesday. Tomas Ojea Quintana, the special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, told the UN General Assembly's human rights committee he was encouraged by the government's commitment to reform and President Thein Sein's priorities including protecting human rights and respecting the rule of law. But he said there are still many serious human rights issues that must be addressed: discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, a judiciary that is ``neither independent nor impartial,'' the continued detention of a large number of political prisoners, allegations of torture and ill-treatment during interrogations, and the use of prisoners as porters or ``human shields.'' Quintana said “Myanmar's new government faces a wide range of daunting challenges from the urgent need to improve the socio-economic situation to ending armed conflict and ensuring lasting peace through national reconciliation.'' He called on the international community to help the government meet these challenges so that a real transition to democracy, which the people of Myanmar have waited many years for, ``takes root.'' Quintana, who visited Myanmar in August, welcomed the release of an estimated 200 political prisoners last week but said the government's first priority must be to release all remaining ``prisoners of conscience.'' The political prisoners released under a presidential amnesty represent about 10 percent of an estimated 2,000 in prison.