UN rights chief tells Myanmar to release protesters

Myanmar should immediately release about 65 protesters arrested earlier this month during a demonstration against fuel price increases, the top U.N. human rights official said.

Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights, said the military-led government should “engage in consultation and dialogue with the demonstrators,” according to a statement released by her office Monday.

Arbour also “stressed that the freedoms of expression and association are touchstones of human rights.”

Fuel price increases of as much as 500 percent earlier this month led to higher prices for public transport and some basic commodities, provoking protests by pro-democracy opposition groups.

Myanmar, one of the world’s most isolated countries, has been at odds for years with the United Nations, whose organizations have accused the southeast Asian nation of practicing torture and forced labor, and of using its armed forces to target ethnic minorities.

In May, Arbour called for the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners, including the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held under house arrest off and on for 11 of the 19 years since the military junta first took control of Myanmar in 1988.