UN Myanmar envoy worried over displaced Muslims

The new U.N. human rights envoy for Myanmar expressed serious concern about the conditions in camps for more than 100,000 mostly minority Muslims displaced by violence led by Buddhist extremists, and warned that the country's human rights situation may be deteriorating.
     
Yanghee Lee spoke Saturday at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission to Myanmar, her first in the capacity of U.N. rapporteur. She said Myanmar should be applauded for having come a long way since installing an elected government in 2011 after almost five decades of repressive military rule.
     
"Yet, there are worrying signs of possible backtracking, which if unchecked could undermine Myanmar's efforts to become a responsible member of the international community that respects and protects human rights," she said, after talks with political and social leaders and trips to troubled areas of the country.
     
In recent months, the government has failed to make much progress in ending religious conflicts and ethnic tensions, and journalists have been coming under legal assault after an initial period of goodwill that saw the lifting of censorship.
     
Facing growing international criticism, Myanmar announced this week it was allowing international aid organizations to return to a western region they were expelled from earlier this year after Buddhist mobs disrupted their work helping displaced Rohingya Muslims.
     
Lee visited western Rakhine state, where since 2012, violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has left at least 280 people dead and 140,000 homeless, mostly Muslims confined in squalid camps. Myanmar is overwhelmingly Buddhist, and most Rohingya are denied citizenship.
     
"The...