GENEVA, March 7 (Reuters) – The crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine
state, where sectarian violence erupted last year, risks
spreading and endangering democratic reforms undertaken since
military rule ended in 2011, a U.N. investigator said on
Thursday.

Myanmar should release the remaining 250 political
prisoners, end torture by police and address root causes of
ethnic conflicts, the independent investigator Tomas Ojea
Quintana said.

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea has built a huge “security perimeter” around a camp for political prisoners, restricting movement in nearby villages as part of its “general repression” of its people, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The reclusive country’s network of political prison camps is believed to hold at least 200,000 people and has been the scene of rapes, torture, executions and slave labor, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in January.

GENEVA, March 7 (Reuters) – North Korea has built a huge
“security perimeter” around a camp for political prisoners,
restricting movement in nearby villages as part of its “general
repression” of its people, Amnesty International said on
Thursday.

The reclusive country’s network of political prison camps is
believed to hold at least 200,000 people and has been the scene
of rapes, torture, executions and slave labour, U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in January.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ main human rights forum observed a minute’s silence on Wednesday for the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez whose record it has often criticized over the years.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has voiced repeated concerns about freedom of expression, lack of independence of the judiciary, restrictions on activists, and arbitrary detentions in Venezuela under Chavez who died on Tuesday.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Britain will publish parts of a confidential report on its role in the U.S. “rendition” of foreign terrorism suspects, its envoy to the main U.N. human rights forum said on Tuesday.

The announcement came in response to a demand from a special U.N. investigator that the United States and Britain publish their own findings on rendition, a policy used under former U.S. President George W. Bush to snatch suspected Islamist militants abroad and interrogate them in secret detention.

GENEVA, March 4 (Reuters) – A United Nations investigator
called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on
the CIA’s Bush-era programme of rendition and secret detention
of terrorism suspects.

Ben Emmerson, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and
protection of human rights while countering terrorism, voiced
concern that while President Barack Obama’s administration has
rejected Central Intelligence Agency practices conducted under
his predecessor George W. Bush, there have been no prosecutions.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria will fall apart if its government and rebels keep fighting instead of seeking a negotiated peace, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.

He said the situation in Syria was deteriorating by the day after almost two years of conflict in which 70,000 people have died, but there was now a slim chance for peace talks.

GENEVA, March 1 (Reuters) – A documentary purporting to show
the execution of civilians and other war crimes committed by the
Sri Lankan army had its first public screening on Friday but was
swiftly rejected by the government as part of an “orchestrated
campaign” against it.

The documentary “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri
Lanka” is the third by British journalist and director Callum
Macrae about the final stages of the nearly 30-year civil war.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Iran has stepped up executions of prisoners including juveniles as well as arrests of dissidents who are often tortured in jail, sometimes to death, the United Nations reported on Thursday.

In twin reports issued in Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. special investigator on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, voiced concern at what they called an apparent rise in the frequency and gravity of abuses in Iran.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Iran has stepped up executions of prisoners including juveniles as well as arrests of dissidents who are often tortured in jail, sometimes to death, the United Nations reported on Thursday.

In twin reports issued in Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. special investigator on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, voiced concern at what they called an apparent rise in the frequency and gravity of abuses in Iran.