Meta Should Pay Reparations to Rohingya Refugees, Rights Group Says

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio 

September 30, 2022

Amnesty International claims that Facebook was aware that its algorithms were amplifying harmful anti-Rohingya hate speech in Myanmar, but still did nothing to stop it.

Facebook’s parent company Meta should pay reparations to Rohingya communities who were driven out of western Myanmar in 2017, given the role that it played in enabling the campaign of ethnic cleansing, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report published yesterday.

In a new report published yesterday, Amnesty claims that Facebook’s “dangerous algorithms and reckless pursuit of profit… substantially contributed to the atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya people in 2017.”

Malaysia’s Anti-Rohingya Refugee Poster Angers Rights Groups

Benar News

Hadi Azmi and Nisha David
Kuala Lumpur
2021-06-11

Rohingya who illegally entered Thailand and were bound for Malaysia, sit in a house in Bangkok, Jan. 3, 2021.

[Handout from Thailand's Immigration Bureau via AFP]

Rights groups in Malaysia are incensed by an illustration posted on social media by government agencies that shows armed security officials and navy ships surrounding a boat, with a caption that says, “Rohingya migrants, your arrival is not welcome.”

Posts of the illustration prepared by the National Task Force were taken down from the Immigration Department’s Twitter feed and the border agency’s Facebook page, after rights watchdog Amnesty International issued a harsh statement against the illustration.

Rights group says Israel may still be arming Myanmar; NGOs call for arms embargo

THE TIMES OF ISREAL

EDITH M. LEDERER
8 May 2021,

Israel’s police training and vehicle supplies ended in 2017, but deliveries of surveillance equipment may be ongoing amid coup, Amnesty International official says

Myanmarese residents in Israel protest agaisnt the military coup wich took place in Myanmar, outside The Chinese Embassy in Tel Aviv on February 15, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than 200 global organizations urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, saying the time for statements has passed and immediate action is needed to help protect peaceful protesters against military rule and other opponents of the junta.

A statement by the non-governmental organizations said the military “has demonstrated a callous disregard for human life” since their February 1 coup, killing at least 769 people including 51 children as young as six years old and detaining several thousand activists, journalists, civil servants, and politicians. Hundreds of others have disappeared, it said.

Rights groups urge UK to join Rohingya case at ICJ

AA

Büşra Nur Bilgiç Çakmak

ANKARA

12.12.2020

Human rights bodies ask UK to follow Canada and Netherlands to join genocide case against Myanmar at ICJ 

FILE PHOTO - Source: official website of the ICJ

 

International human rights organizations on Friday urged the UK to support the genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

“In September, the Netherlands and Canada said they were planning to make a formal intervention in the case. We now urge the British government to also throw its weight behind the case,” said the statement issued by the human rights groups including the European Rohingya Council and Free Rohingya Coalition.

The groups added that it was becoming clear that the Myanmar government has no intention to follow the provisional measures set out by the court.

Rights group: Satellite images show Myanmar village burning

By PYAE SONE WIN
Associated Press
May 26, 2020

YANGON, Myanmar — Satellite imagery that shows a village burning in a conflict zone in western Myanmar lends credence to reports that houses were set ablaze there by government soldiers, a major human rights group said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement that an investigation is necessary to determine who was responsible for setting at least 200 buildings on fire on May 16 in the village of Let Kar in Rakhine state's Mrauk-U township.

Activists championed by rights groups have history of anti-Rohingya messaging

Frontier

MYANMAR

ANDREW NACHEMSON and LUN MIN MANG
Sunday, May 24, 2020

Ko Zayar Lwin (centre left, with white rose) attends a court in Yangon with other Peacock Generation members on October 30, 2019. (Nyein Su Wai Kyaw Soe | Frontier)

 

Some prominent activists who say they stand for human rights and democracy have propagated hatred for the Rohingya, a double-standard that international watchdog groups weren’t fully aware of. 

 

Ko Zayar Lwin, 29, has become an icon in Myanmar’s activist community since his arrest in April 2019 for a Thangyat performance mocking the military. Zayar Lwin and four of his colleagues in the Peacock Generation troupe, who performed the traditional form of satirical theatre during the annual Thingyan festival, were charged with defamation and undermining the military, and face increasingly lengthy jail sentences. The plight of the young satirists has attracted international attention, even as the civilian government led by their idol State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has remained silent.

Rights Groups Slam ASEAN's Positive Take on Rohingya Repatriation Plan

VOA

By Zsombor Peter

June 21, 2019 

   FILE - Rohingya sits on a beach at Rawi island in Satun province Southern of Thailand Tuesday, June 11, 2019. Thai officials say they have discovered 65 ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees who were shipwrecked and stranded in southern Thailand.

BANGKOK - A report by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Myanmar's readiness to repatriate Muslim Rohingya who fled to neighboring Bangladesh paints a mostly positive picture of the country's efforts.

Rights group urges Arakan Army to release 54 civilians

MYANMAR TIMES

Nyan Lynn Aung  

01 May 2019

A human rights group in Chin State has called on the Arakan Army (AA) to release 54 ethnic Khumi people it seized more than three months ago.

The Khumi Affairs Coordination Council said the civilians were arrested by AA fighters at Kangtlang village in Paletwa township in Chin on February 2 and taken to the armed ethnic group’s base in Bangladesh in February.

It said the captives were forced to work at the camp and were not properly fed. It added that the families of the civilians were afraid for their health.