‘Decades in the making’ and reaching beyond borders

Voicing concern that hate speech and incitement to violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya community has been “cultivated for decades” in the minds of the country’s people, a United Nations human rights expert urged the Security Council to act strongly to resolve the crisis.

“The crisis in Rakhine state has not only been decades in the making but has for some time gone beyond Myanmar’s borders. For a very long time now this issue has not been simply a domestic affair,” said Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the country, presenting her report to the UN General Assembly’s main body dealing with human rights and social and humanitarian issues (Third Committee).