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Arakan Rohingya Union Demands Facebook to Release Hate Posts and Hate Speech content Against Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar

June 11th, 2020  •  Author:   Arakan Rohingya Union  •  3 minute read
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Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) unequivocally demands the Facebook officials to unconditionally release all the postings by current and former Burmese military officials, police forces, and extremist organizations that include various forms of systematic campaigns, propaganda, and hate speech directed towards Rohingya ethnic minority of Burma.

The court filing by the attorneys in Washington on behalf of the Republic of The Gambia on June 8, 2020, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, calling on Facebook to release all false propaganda, misinformation and communications content, drafted, posted or published on Facebook by the Burmese armed forces and extremist organizations, is timely while the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice is in progress.

Banning the accounts of some Burmese military officials, police forces, and extremist organizations by Facebook in August of 2018 is a small step forward but it is nowhere close to being adequate. The Facebook must exercise greater transparency and release all the documents, communications, and images/illustrations that were published or the content that were submitted to Facebook.

The Government policy of revocation of the citizenship of Rohingya along with all their basic rights were not enough for the perpetrators. Dehumanization of Rohingya people and incitement of violence via social media platforms, particularly Facebook, against Rohingya has gone on for years leading to thousands of deaths, atrocities, sexual violence, followed by displacement of over 2 million Rohingya, internally in Arakan/Rakhine State and externally in several countries. The social fabrics of Rohingya, their ethnic identity, the historic monuments, and numerous cultural and religious attributes have been effectively destroyed through government policies and violence incited by hate propaganda, disinformation campaigns, incendiary messages, and hate speech on social media.

Disclosure of all contents of the actual and troll accounts of the Burmese military and police forces, communications produced, drafted, posted or published on the Facebook by the Burmese armed forces and extremist organizations, will be a noble move by the social media outlet to protect the Rohingya ethnic minority. Therefore, on behalf of Rohingya people, the Arakan Rohingya Union demands Facebook to show sensitivity to the genocidal crimes and humanitarian crisis faced by the Rohingya people, and take a noble step and comply with the order by the U.S. District Court.

[email protected]; www.RohingyaUnion.org
ARAKAN ROHINGYA UNION

Arakan Rohingya Union, a global Rohingya umbrella organization, representing 61 Rohingya organizations worldwide, was formed under the patronage of the OIC Secretary General as a united Rohingya coordinated council to reclaim the rights of Rohingya people in their homeland, Burma/Myanmar. Arakan Rohingya Union is registered in the USA as 501(c)(3) organization and recognized by all the 57 member states of OIC as the official representative organization of the Rohingya people through the Resolution No.4/37-MM at the 38th OIC Council of Foreign Ministers Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.

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