The social network is a key
tool in the information war taking place over violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine
state, which has driven more than 420,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country and
sparked UN accusations of military-led “ethnic cleansing”.
Facebook said it has banned
a Rohingya militant group from its site, designating it a ‘dangerous
organisation as information on the deepening crisis is muddied by claims,
counter-claims and hate speech on social media.
Rohingya activists have
used the platform to post alleged scenes of brutality from the conflict zone,
where humanitarian and media access is severely restricted, while the army and
government deliver near-daily updates on the crisis.
A Facebook spokeswoman told
AFP late Wednesday it was not requested by the government to bar the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which remains active on Twitter.
The spokeswoman added that
the move was in line with its policy of prohibiting violent groups from its
site.
The latest violence in
Rahkine erupted after a series of deadly ARSA attacks on military posts in
August.
The army has been blamed
for launching a crackdown in response that has forced hundreds of thousands of
Rohingya Muslims, along with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus, into
neighbouring Bangladesh.
The spokeswoman said
Facebook was aware that Rohingya activists were using the site to draw
attention to the violence, and that it intended to allow non-graphic content to
remain online.
Myanmar’s de facto leader
Aung San Suu Kyi has played down claims of atrocities and blamed “a huge
iceberg of misinformation” for complicating the conflict.
She has faced mounting
criticism from global leaders over what the United Nations has called a
“textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya Muslims.
Britain sent back five
Myanmar army officers from a training session this week, “on account of the
current situation in Rakhine”, Myanmar’s army said on Facebook late Wednesday.
The move comes amid a
mounting diplomatic spat between the two countries, with Britain saying
Wednesday it had suspended all educational training courses for the Myanmar
military over concerns of rights abuses in Rakhine state.
Rohingyas are widely
reviled in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are considered illegal
‘Bengali’ immigrants brought in from modern-day Bangladesh during British
colonial rule.
There were an estimated 1.1
million Rohingyas in Rakhine state before the current crisis, though nearly
half have fled into Bangladesh where they are cramped into ill-equipped camps.
AFP
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