March 16, 2016

From legislative issues to citizenship for Rohingyas, Suu Kyi has an uphill task in reforming Myanmar

As Myanmar’s parliament elected its first-ever civilian president, a UN expert on Myanmar said that even though there have been wide-ranging reforms since 2011 “hundreds of laws remain on the book” that do not comply with international standards and that need immediate attention.

“Hundreds of laws remain on the book that do not comply with Myanmar’s human rights obligations and some of these laws are very outdated — old laws — while others have been recently enacted,” Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, told reporters on Tuesday.

In her annual report that she presented to the Human Rights Council (HRC) on 14 March, Lee notes 30 legislations that need to be “re-looked at, amended, repealed or rescinded”.

Htin Kyaw, a close ally of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept the historic elections on 8 November, 2015, won 360 of the 652 votes cast in the two houses of parliament. This is Myanmar’s first-ever civilian president after half a century of military rule. (Courtesy of Firstpost)

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