Lawyers taking Myanmar to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority have approached a US district court to order Facebook to release posts and communications of the country’s military and law enforcement officials.
The UN Court, also known as the World Court, is based in the Hague in the Netherlands, and has agreed to hear a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya, which violates a 1948 convention. Over the last 3 years, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have fled a violent crackdown in the Buddhist-majority country, which considers Rohingyas as foreigners. Hostility towards Muslim refugees continues to grow in the region, leaving thousands vulnerable and in dire need of protection. On Wednesday, Bangladesh and Malaysia came out in opposition to taking in any more Rohingyas, and called on the international community to help relocate them.
Last year, the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar documented “consistent patterns of serious human rights violations” by Myanmar’s military officials, including gender-based violence, and mass killing. The panel recommended that Myanmar’s military officials “should be investigated and prosecuted in an international criminal tribunal for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
In November, The Gambia stepped forward and brought the case to the ICJ, who sided with West African country, and ordered Myanmar to protect the remaining Rohingya within its borders, and required it to report on the progress made.
Also read: ICJ to Rule on Provisional Measures in Rohingya Genocide Case Next Week
Myanmar authorities, however, have consistently maintained that the military did not commit genocide or systematically use “disproportionate force” against innocent civilians. Instead, they contend that the forces embarked on an admittedly “haphazard” campaign to root out militants and insurgents. In 2018, UN human rights investigators noted that Facebook–which is the most commonly used social media platform in the country–had played a crucial role in spreading hate speech that incited violence against vulnerable groups in Myanmar. In December that year, the social media giant deleted nearly 600 hundred accounts, pages, and groups with links to the Myanmar military for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior”.
Now, in order to obtain evidence of “genocidal intent”, on June 8, lawyers filed a request on behalf of The Gambia with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia, calling on Facebook to release “all documents and communications produced, drafted, posted or published on the Facebook page” of Myanmar military officials and police forces. Myanmar officials associated with the atrocities must be found to have the specific intent to destroy the Rohingya ethnic group “in whole or in part” in order to prove genocide, which is considered to be the most serious of all international crimes. The Commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, is one of the many officials whose data is being sought.
Facebook has said that it would evaluate The Gambia’s request in accordance with its applicable laws.
Image Source: The National