(Photo: DVB) Aye Nai
July 26,
2013
The defence attorney providing legal counsel to a group
of Rohingya in Arakan state’s Sittwe claims the general-secretary of the Rakine
Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) has threatened him for representing
members from the Muslim minority.
Hla Myo Myint, who is representing seven Rohingya facing
multiple charges including rioting and disturbing government officials after
they refused to register as “Bengalis” at a displacement camp near the state
capital, said the RNDP’s Khine Pyi Soe and a group of men first approached him
when he was leaving the Sittwe courthouse on 12 July.
According to the lawyer, the posse allegedly surrounded
him as he was leaving the court and proceeded to follow him to his hotel after
he fled the scene in a UN vehicle.
At the hotel, the group then threatened Hla Myo Myint and
tried to get the hotel staff to kick him out of the establishment.
“We were surrounded by the RNDP’s Khine Pyi Soe and his
company and had to leave the [courthouse] in the UN OHCHR (Office for the High
Commissioner of Human Rights) regional representative’s car,” said Hla Myo
Myint.
“I went back to the Sittwe Hotel and in about half an hour,
a group of seven men including Khin Pyi Soe showed up and took photos of me.
They threatened me and said to stop following the case and also pressured the
hotel staff to kick me out.”
While Hla Myo Myint said he has no plans to press charges
against the RNDP, the lawyer has filed a formal request to Burma’s supreme
court on 18 July asking to relocate the trial to Rangoon.
The RNDP general- secretary Khine Pyi Soe rejected the
allegations and claimed that the military affairs security and police’s special
intelligence department personnel were present at the scene.
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