Myanmar: Facebook provided information on potential war crimes

The United Nations is probing the possible war crimes that Myanmar has committed in its long-running probe into the treatment of the Rohingya. The head of the investigators said Facebook provided the team with information to support the allegations of war crimes as well as genocide.

Nicholas Koumijan, the head of the UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, said Monday that the major social media platform has provided the panel with information that could support the allegations of war crimes and genocide in its ongoing probe.

The IIMM has been investigating the charges against Myanmar for its 2017 military crackdown on the Rohingya that forced the ethnic group to flee to Bangladesh.

“Facebook has shared with the mechanism millions of items from networks of accounts that were taken down by company because they misrepresented their identity,” said Koumijan in his remarks to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Facebook, which is under Meta Platforms, said they support the international efforts to hold those responsible for war crimes against the Rohingya accountable. Koumijan also said the mechanism has prepared 67 “evidential and analytical packages”, which are intended to be shared with judicial authorities.

Meta’s director for human rights policy Miranda Sissons said in an email that the platform has “made voluntary, lawful disclosures to the UN’s investigative mechanism as well as disclosures of public information to The Gambia,” which filed the genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

Back in 2018, UN human rights investigators said Facebook was responsible for spreading hate speech that fueled the violence in Myanmar. The social media platform said it was working to block hate speech.

Myanmar has been under military rule since February last year, when the generals overthrew the elected government in a coup, drawing international condemnation.

A Whitehall source said Tuesday that representatives of Myanmar, along with Russia and Belarus, were not invited to attend the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

Myanmar is also under sanctions by the United Kingdom for its crackdown on the Rohingya as London seeks to support the Rohingya community.

Around 500 foreign dignitaries are expected to attend the monarch’s funeral.