Myanmar: while the world sits on its hands, people fight military junta with violence and silence

Source TheConversation, 1 Feb

A year after a military coup, Myanmar remains mired in conflict. The country's military, the Tatmadaw, has failed to convince most of Myanmar's 55 million people of the legitimacy of its rule. Anti-coup resistance continues to be widespread nationwide.

The anniversary will be marked within Myanmar by a "silent strike", with participants acknowledging those jailed or killed by the junta during the last year by avoiding public space, leaving Myanmar's streets empty. The junta has threatened participants with decades-long jail sentences and property confiscations. But if previous calls for anti-coup resistance are an indication, tens of millions of people will stay home and Myanmar's streets will be spookily empty.

Silent strikers have a lot of people to acknowledge. The junta has jailed 11,838 according to Myanmar's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. This included State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and as many of Myanmar's civilian politicians as the military could round up and have killed – 1,503 – often with appalling cruelty.

In the immediate wake of the coup, hundreds of mostly young, peaceful protesters were killed by army snipers. In ethnic minority areas, soldiers replicated the kinds of scorched earth tactics used when the Tatmadaw genocidally deported the Rohingya in 2017.

A crackdown after the coup killed hundreds of protestors. EPA

Recent indiscriminate atrocities include the driving of a truck into a crowd of peaceful protesters, the burning alive of 11 people including four children in retaliation for an attack by anti-junta militia, and the massacre of 31 people fleeing violent clashes.

Rather than quelling popular opposition to military rule, the junta's brutality and extreme violence has instead convinced many people of the necessity of removing the military from power for good. Resistance has encompassed a broad range of activities including peaceful protests that drew global attention, and civil disobedience and strikes that have paralysed the bureaucracy and transport sectors. Increasingly this has included violent opposition to the junta.

Resistance is strongly encouraged by the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow government in exile that draws heavily from politicians elected at the 2020 general election. In September, NUG leaders announced a "defensive war" against the junta, encouraging the creation of People's Defence Force militias to target the Tatmadaw and its assets.

These militias have increasingly linked with the armed wings of Myanmar's ethnic minority groups, of which there are dozens, many of whom have themselves been in conflict with the Tatmadaw for decades. A nationwide united front of militias and ethnic armed groups has the potential to significantly stretch Tatmadaw capabilities.

Economic shambles

Creating a further challenge for the junta is the shambolic state of the economy. The World Bank estimated an 18% contraction during 2021 and predicted a paltry 1% growth in 2022, describing the economy as "critically weak". The national currency, the kyat, has fallen to historic lows, losing 60% of its value in September alone.

The World Food Program estimated a 29% rise among a basket of basic foods, and a 71% hike in fuel prices during 2021, contributing to widespread food insecurity and pushing millions towards poverty.

The perilous state of the economy has revived memories of the shockingly poor economic management during previous periods of military rule which saw Myanmar (then Burma), in 1987, designated a "Least Developed Country" by the UN.

Mixed diplomatic messages

Internationally, the news for the junta is mixed. Military-ruled Myanmar is isolated diplomatically, the military government has been barred from participation in meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and Myanmar's delegate to the UN General Assembly speaks on behalf of the NUG, rather than the junta. But the generals have not had to face foreign intervention, an arms embargo, or even a UN Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Western political leaders have been strong on anti-coup rhetoric and have imposed a range of economic sanctions, but there has been a studied reluctance to go beyond that. Most have been comfortable with Asean taking responsibility for addressing the situation in Myanmar. But the consensus-based regional bloc has proven unable to take decisive action, and its "five-point consensus" has been variously frustrated and ignored by the junta.

At the security council, neither the US, UK, nor France, all permanent members who have condemned the coup, has been prepared to force a vote on imposing an arms embargo or referring Myanmar's generals to the ICC. This might at least encourage Myanmar's defenders at the UN and its major arms suppliers – China and Russia - to push the junta to moderate its actions.

This situation is reminiscent of the west's response to the 2017 Rohingya crisis, when soaring rhetoric was not matched with actions to prevent criminality or achieve accountability. This arguably contributed to the Tatmadaw's sense of impunity which underpinned its decision to launch the current coup, convinced that it might face condemnatory rhetoric but little else from the UN or western governments.

Civilian leader Aung San Su Kyi has been sentenced to six years in prison. EPA

Edge of collapse

Military boss Min Aung Hlaing now presides over a crisis-riven country at the edge of complete political and economic collapse. While the junta has unquestionably failed to win hearts and minds and appears to have wildly underestimated the likely domestic opposition to renewed military rule, there are few indications the junta is considering any compromise that might see the Tatmadaw return to its barracks.

Meanwhile, held incommunicado for a year, Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the 2020 general election, has been recently sentenced to six years in jail via an absurd, military-run court process.

All this suggests Myanmar faces a worrying future: a military determined to rule and prepared to use appalling violence to achieve power, and a population equally determined to remove the military from power.

A protracted conflict will have devastating consequences for Myanmar's people. By imposing an arms embargo on the Tatmadaw, the security council could help to defeat the junta more quickly. In the silent strike, millions of people will bravely risk decades in jail to protest military rule that is as illegitimate as it is cruel. They will be hoping the security council can show some bravery too.

In Rakhine, more than 100 Rohingya were sentenced to five years in prison each

Source RFA, 16 Dec

aungdaw Township Court on December 14 sentenced 109 of the more than 190 Rohingya arrested in Rakhine State on a boat trip from Malaysia to Malaysia and sentenced them to five years in prison each, and sent them to Buthidaung Prison, a lawyer told RFA.

The other 90 were released after being warned by a court they were under the age of 18.

On November 29, the military arrested 228 people in a boat 17 miles northwest of Mayu Island near Sittwe, Rakhine State, along with a motorboat.

Of those, 35 children under the age of 10 were released the same day, and the rest were prosecuted by the Maungdaw District Immigration Department.

They are refugees from Rakhine State in a refugee camp in Bangladesh and have been sentenced to the maximum sentence under Section 13 (1) of the 1947 Immigration Act, "Tin Hlaing Oo, a lawyer representing the case, told RFA.

"They went to Malaysia illegally from Bangladesh," he said. Many of them took refuge in Bangladesh during the 2017 uprising. And there are five Burmans from Tanintharyi. And two Bangladeshi nationals. Section 13 (1) of the current provisions of the 1947 Immigration Act provides for a maximum sentence of five years in prison. We have clients who have been handed over to Thazin. "I will appeal to them."

Five Burmese nationals were among those arrested and imprisoned.

A family member of the detainee told RFA that the Rohingya had fled to Malaysia because they were facing difficulties in a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

"There are difficulties in the refugee camps in Bangladesh," he said. I am going to Malaysia because I do not want to live in a refugee camp because I can not live with the violence. Some people who have families in Malaysia go to their families. Some go to get married. Some took their brothers with them. It costs about 120 lakhs per person to go there. Some 110 lakhs. Some of them are 100 lakhs. In some cases, it costs 90 lakhs. "

They were killed during the 2017 conflict in Buthidaung. He said he had to flee from Maungdaw Township to a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

A Muslim village head in Buthidaung Township, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that Muslims currently living in Rakhine State are also subject to travel restrictions.

"Everywhere you look today, the tide of protectionist sentiment is flowing.

They do not want to be named for security reasons, as they are often interrogated when reporting their problems to the media.

On November 25, Muslims in Buthidaung Township were required to travel on Form 4, and the township administration issued a local order restricting them to three months.

He said the ban on Rohingya Muslims from crossing the border and the arrest and imprisonment of them were inhumane.

"Wherever we find and arrest our people in Burma, we will be sentenced to two years in prison," he said. Three years The five-year sentence is inhumane. That should not be the case. We can not go anywhere in Rakhine State where we now live. For example, Maungdaw or Sittwe. If something goes wrong, do not go. He was arrested and interrogated. You have to take Form 4. It is not easy to take Form 4. There are difficulties. "

( Photo: Tatmadaw News Agency) 

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said he could not accept the arrest.

"Imprisonment is not fair. According to Article 13 (1) of the Immigration Act, the minimum sentence is six months and the maximum is five years. But we do not care about the international community because of the pressure from the military on the Rohingya in the international community. Last month's issuance of travel permits made it clear that the International Court of Justice could not comply with the order.

Buthidaung, Rakhine State In Maungdaw townships, more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2017 due to military clearance.

They have not been able to return home and are still facing difficulties in the camps. 

A Day After Rohingya Refugees Sued Facebook for $150B, the Company Announced Some Changes

Source Time, 8 Dec

BANGKOK — Facebook's parent company Meta said Wednesday it has expanded its ban on postings linked to Myanmar's military to include all pages, groups, and accounts representing military-controlled businesses. It had already banned advertising from such businesses in February.

The February action, which also banned military and military-controlled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram, followed the army's seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The new action came just a day after a high-profile lawsuit was filed in California against Facebook parent Meta Platforms seeking over $150 billion for the company's alleged failure to stop hateful posts that incited violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority by Myanmar's military and its supporters, which crested in 2017.

The army, known in Myanmar as the Tatmadaw, was notorious for a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine, which drove more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh. Critics say the campaign, which included mass killings, rape and arson, constituted ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide.

Since February's takeover, security forces have used lethal force to put down nonviolent protests against military rule. At least 1,600 civilians have been killed by security forces, according to a detailed tally compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The army also has been accused of abuses against villagers as it fights members of pro-democracy militias in the countryside.

Activists say the military uses the internet to spread disinformation and hate speech. In April, Facebook announced it was "implementing a specific policy for Myanmar to remove praise, support and advocacy of violence by Myanmar security forces and protestors from our platform."

The group Burma Campaign UK, which had sought to get Facebook do more to curb the military's reach through its platforms, welcomed the move but noted that Facebook had resisted taking down military companies' pages.

"The belated decision to remove military company pages appears more an act of desperation after being sued for $150 billion for being involved in Rohingya genocide than any genuine concern for human rights," Burma Campaign UK's director, Mark Farmaner, said in a statement.

Wednesday's statement from Rafael Frankel, Asia-Pacific director of policy for Meta, said the company was taking action "based on extensive documentation by the international community of these businesses' direct role in funding the Tatmadaw's ongoing violence and human rights abuses in Myanmar."

The military controls major portions of Myanmar's economy, largely through two big holding companies. Because corporate links are not always clear, Meta said it is using a report compiled by U.N, investigators in 2019 to identify relevant firms.

In response to the abuses committed against the Rohingya, Facebook in 2018 banned 20 military-linked individuals and organizations including Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who now leads the army-installed government. From 2018 to 2010, Facebook removed six networks of accounts controlled by the military, which did not acknowledge the backing.

This year, Facebook disabled pages belonging to state media that violated Facebook rules about promoting violence and harm to others.

Malaysia houses 200,000 Rohingya refugees, Saifuddin reveals

Source TheMalaysianreverse, 7 Oct

THE number of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia is currently around 200,000 — the highest in South-East Asia, Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said.

Saifuddin told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday that Malaysia, together with other countries need to continue working towards the cessation of Rohingyans or other citizens' expulsion from their respective countries.

"Malaysia is taking steps to continue highlighting the issue of Rohingya refugees regionally and globally," he said.

"At the Asean level for example, Malaysia constantly and loudly spoke out on the issue of Rohingya refugees. Malaysia also strongly supports Asean's efforts in facilitation on the repatriation of Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar."

Saifuddin further said Malaysia also sees that if accountability or accountability for this issue can be achieved through International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, the Rohingya ethnic group is likely to get due protection while deportations as well as violations against them can be stopped.

"In the past, Malaysia had been the first country to facilitate constructive engagement even before Myanmar became a member of Asean," he said during a question-and-answer session.

He said this in response to Wong Chen (PKR-Subang) queries on whether Malaysia is willing to have a dialogue with the current Myanmar's unity government, without having to go through Asean as en bloc for the dialogue.

Malaysia is of the opinion that it would be difficult to invite the army chief currently in power in Naypyidaw to attend the Asean Summit on Oct 26 to 28.

Bernama reported that since the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown by Myanmar's junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing on Feb 1, there had been internal unrest with nearly 1,000 civilians killed by security forces.

Asean has also appointed Brunei Foreign Minister II Erywan Mohd Yusof as special envoy to Myanmar but he has not been able to play his role because of the military government's refusal to cooperate.

Myanmar's genocide bleached as 'ethnic cleansing'

Source English, 29 Aug

The West's liberal democratic regimes - in this case the Anglo-American governments - manipulate the principles of human rights and international treaties such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to suit their geopolitical and corporate interests

I was shocked and deeply repulsed beyond words to witness the apparent coordinated attempts by the administrations of Boris Johnson and Joe Biden at bleaching Myanmar's international legal crime of genocide on the very day Rohingya survivors around the world have come to recognise as Genocide Remembrance Day.

While the British Embassy @UK-in-Myanmar was busy tweeting "Today marks the 4th anniversary since the military's committed ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya," the US State Department issued a press statement, entitled "Marking the 4th Anniversary of Ethnic Cleansing in Rakhine State". The American version of spin begins with the opening sentence, "Four years ago, Burma's military launched a horrific ethnic cleansing against Rohingya in northern Rakhine State."

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In a different moral universe where rights activists such as myself and dozens of scholars and activists firmly anchor ourselves, human rights are lived principles. International crime codes like the Genocide Convention are lived law.

The West's liberal democratic regimes - in this case the Anglo-American governments - manipulate the principles of human rights and international treaties such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to suit their geopolitical and corporate interests.

The Johnson and Biden regimes have added insult to the injury of several million Rohingya survivors

For the Americans, the Myanmar genocide is viewed through its paranoid prism that Beijing is dislodging the US as the global hegemon.

Post-Brexit Britain is chiefly concerned about maintaining its market access and shoring up corporate profits in emerging markets, however evil their business partners may be as evidenced in the Independent's headlines "European allies are alarmed by the UK's 'de facto recognition' of the Myanmar junta by sending a new British envoy" two days ago.

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But even my 30 years of international human rights activism did not prepare me for the level of moral depravity to which American and British policy-makers are prepared to sink. Washington and London in effect denied and dismissed the crime of genocide on the very day Rohingya have set aside each year to mourn their dead families and friends, and burning of their villages and destruction of their way of life. Blindly the two great powers throw humanitarian crumbs at the survivors who live in sub-human conditions in Bangladesh and Myanmar.

By misnaming Rohingya genocide as "ethnic cleansing," they employ the favourite euphemism for genocide invented by the Serbian genocidal leader Slobodan Milošević. The Johnson and Biden regimes have added insult to the injury of several million Rohingya survivors. The survivors are trapped in refugee and IDP camps and in diaspora dislocation. They drown when their boats are driven back out to sea by the navies of governments like Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

UK and US leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, routinely use the morally loaded term "genocide," to score points against their enemies, such as China, Libya, or Syria. But Washington and London now seem to coordinate their Milosevicesque use of the term "ethnic cleansing," dismissing the Rohingya demand that they call a spade a spade, a genocide a genocide.

The Biden administration's refusal to officially recognize Myanmar's intentional physical destruction of Rohingyas as "genocide," as defined by the Genocide Convention, stands in sharp contrast with the overwhelming recognition and condemnation of Myanmar's crime of genocide by the US Congress.

US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Representative Gregory W Meeks (D-NY-5), the two leading lawmakers, who chair the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee respectively, have publicly pressed US President Joe Biden "to make a formal determination that these crimes (against Rohingya) constitute genocide." On the day of commemoration of the Rohingya genocide, Gregory Stanton, former State Department official and the world's foremost legal and anthropological scholar of genocide – trained at Yale Law and the University of Chicago – read his poem "What is justice?", at the Free Rohingya Coalition Genocide Memorial Event on 25 August. He asked pointedly, "What is justice for a lawyer who still won't call it genocide?"

In his forthcoming publication, entitled '"Ethnic Cleansing" is a Euphemism Used for Genocide Denial,' Stanton argues persuasively that "ethnic cleansing" is tantamount to genocide denial.

As used by Milošević, the press, the UN, and many governmental policy makers, the term "ethnic cleansing" is used to avoid using the word "genocide." "Ethnic cleansing" has become a euphemism used for genocide denial.

In Stanton's scathing words of indictment: "The UN, press, human rights groups, and many governments still call the Myanmar Army's aggression, genocidal massacres, and forced deportation against the Rohingya "ethnic cleansing." "Ethnic cleansing" is a term invented by Slobodan Milošević and Serbian propagandists as a euphemism for forced deportation and genocide.

"Ethnic cleansing" in common usage means forced deportation. But unlike the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer of population, and the crime of genocide, it is not a term that appears in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It has no legal meaning in international law. There is no treaty outlawing it. No national legal codes prohibit "ethnic cleansing." No prosecutor can charge anyone for committing it. The term is a license for impunity.

As used by Milošević, the press, the UN, and many governmental policy makers, the term "ethnic cleansing" is used to avoid using the word "genocide." "Ethnic cleansing" has become a euphemism used for genocide denial. Because Article 1 of the Genocide Convention implies the obligation to act to prevent genocide, avoiding use of the term "genocide" has the same practical outcome as genocide denial. Users of the term "ethnic cleansing"—like genocide deniers—are freed from their duty to prevent or stop genocide."

At the same FRC Genocide Memorial Event, Dr Katherine Southwick, another Yale-trained American legal scholar who warned of genocide against the Rohingya as early as 2014, vented her frustration. Southwick said to the Facebook LIVE audience of 20,000+ viewers on Wednesday, "so with frustration with the international community's own lack of accountability, yet with hope and gratitude, the international community must do nothing less than acknowledge genocide and renew our solidarity and support for the Rohingya and equal rights for all in Myanmar."

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Taking a non-legal perspective, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the leading scholar of post-colonial studies and University Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University in New York, was emphatic with her demand for legal acknowledgment of genocide – which Rohingya have long been subjected to – when she invoked "common sense".

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The Indian scholar told the worldwide audience at the FRC Genocide Memorial Facebook LIVE yesterday thus: "I want to speak to my Rohingya brothers and sisters and talk to them about a possible future. It is the unacknowledged genocide that has made it impossible for me to do what I want to do today. I don't think our conscience needs to go to legal definitions to acknowledge that a Rohingya is killed simply because she is a Rohingya. By common sense, that is genocide. But we must have an international legal acknowledgment in order for the possibility of legal redress to begin."

Rohingya – and their international friends – worldwide mourned the mass-death and destruction of numerous victims raped, maimed, slaughtered, and genocidally murdered – and lamented the absence of any effective acts by the "abstract international community" – to borrow Spivak's coinage.

On the same day, General Sadat, a US-trained commander in the Afghan National Army, was writing in the New York Times, with justified anger towards the US government for having abandoned the Afghan people. (The Afghan Army Collapsed Against the Taliban. Here's Why. - The New York Times) General Sadat writes, "I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry. President Biden said last week that 'American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.' It's true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that's because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden's tone and words over the past few months."

The betrayal and a palpable sense of abandonment that the wretched of the earth who struggle for their right to life and liberty have felt towards the liberal West in general and the US in particular, with US signature honey-tongued support for human rights and "the rule-based international order," is nothing new.

In the early years of the Cold War, after having made promises of solidarity which they never intended to keep, the US and western allies abandoned thousands of Hungarian rights activists in the wintery month of November 1956.

Almost 20 years ago, Matthew Daley, then serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian Affairs at the US State Department, met with me in his office in Washington, DC. Daley pointedly warned me against trusting and relying on the US government for the Burmese liberation struggle.

"My government's Burma policy is unconscionable. We made empty promises to the Hungarian democrats in 1956. Then when they were slaughtered (by the Soviets), we did nothing. So, you Burmese must find your own solutions."

The ugly truth is Western and Eastern birds of the same feather flock together in the UN Security Council, where they take turns denying their own war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocides, and where they flout international treaty obligations that conflict with their national interests

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But it's one thing for the US and its British poodle to abandon dissidents worldwide against corrupt and brutal regimes, be they Hungarians, South Vietnamese or, pro-human rights and anti-Taliban Afghan people. It is another moral low for British and American foreign ministries to coordinate their statements of genocidal denial as they did on the 4th anniversary of "ethnic cleansing" in Rakhine State.

Ten years ago, my research colleague and partner Natalie Brinham (writing under the pen name Alice Cowley), and I conducted a 3-year path-breaking study based on hundreds of interviews with Rohingya survivors in Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar. We reached the unequivocal conclusion that Myanmar has institutionalised the intentional physical destruction of its Rohingya minority. The genocidal process started with the destruction of their group identity and denial of their history in Burma centuries before Burma or Myanmar came into existence in 1948. We published our findings as a commissioned peer-reviewed article entitled "The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar's Rohingya" in the Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal of the University of Washington School of Law in the spring of 2014.

The Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) was the Washington law firm that the US State Department hired to conduct a forensic investigation of crimes against the Rohingya, using a representative sample of 1,000 Rohingya survivors in Bangladesh in 2017. When the State Department refused to use the term "genocide" in the official State Department report of the findings, PILPG went public with its genocide findings.

PILPG's Paul Williams told a press conference in Washington in 2018, "It is clear from our intense legal review that there is, in fact, a legal basis to conclude that the Rohingya were the victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide." But the Trump Administration decided to shelve its own commissioned report, when the findings did not suit the US government's agenda.

British politicians were no more receptive of facts and findings about the Myanmar genocide, according to Queen Mary University of London Professor Penny Green, whose International State Crime Initiative, documented the evidence of the genocide in 'Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar' (2015). She spoke on the FRC Genocide Memorial Event on Facebook LIVE this week.

It is no wonder that the Taliban, the Xis and the Putins of the world, and rogue regimes everywhere pay no attention to Anglo-American joint statements that bark about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Nor do these rogue regimes think twice before they commit mass atrocities.

The ugly truth is Western and Eastern birds of the same feather flock together in the UN Security Council, where they take turns denying their own war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocides, and where they flout international treaty obligations that conflict with their national interests.

Those in high offices who have been entrusted to ensure the peace, security and well-being of humanity have turned out to be the worst enemies of "We the People."

* Maung Zarni is a co-founder and Burmese coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition and an advisor to the Genocide Watch

U.S. court orders Facebook to release anti-Rohingya content records for genocide case

Source Reuters, 23 Sept

Sept 23 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge has ordered Facebook (FB.O) to release records of accounts connected to anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar that the social media giant had shut down, rejecting its argument about protecting privacy as "rich with irony".

The judge in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday criticized Facebook for failing to hand over information to investigators seeking to prosecute the country for international crimes against the Muslim minority Rohingya, according to a copy of the ruling.

Facebook had refused to release the data, saying it would violate a U.S. law barring electronic communication services from disclosing users' communications.

But the judge said the posts, which were deleted, would not be covered under the law and not sharing the content would "compound the tragedy that has befallen the Rohingya".

"Facebook taking up the mantle of privacy rights is rich with irony. News sites have entire sections dedicated to Facebook's sordid history of privacy scandals," he wrote.

A spokesperson for Facebook said the company was reviewing the decision and that it had already made "voluntary, lawful disclosures" to another U.N. body, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.

More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar's Rakhine state in August 2017 after a military crackdown that refugees said including mass killings and rape. Rights groups documented killings of civilians and burning of villages.

Myanmar authorities say they were battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.

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A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

The crackdown by the army, during the rule of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government, did not generate much outcry in the Buddhist-majority nation, where the Rohingya are widely derided as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Gambia wants the data for a case against Myanmar it is pursuing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide.

In 2018, U.N. human rights investigators said Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fueled the violence.

A Reuters investigation that year found more than 1,000 examples of hate speech on Facebook, including calling Rohingya and other Muslims dogs, maggots and rapists, suggesting they be fed to pigs, and urging they be shot or exterminated.

Facebook said at the time it had been "too slow to prevent misinformation and hate" in Myanmar.

In Wednesday's ruling, U.S. magistrate judge Zia M. Faruqui said Facebook had taken a first step by deleting "the content that fueled a genocide" but had "stumbled" by not sharing it.

"A surgeon that excises a tumor does not merely throw it in the trash. She seeks a pathology report to identify the disease," he said.

"Locking away the requested content would be throwing away the opportunity to understand how disinformation begat genocide of the Rohingya and would foreclose a reckoning at the ICJ."

Shannon Raj Singh, human rights counsel at Twitter (TWTR.N), called the decision "momentous" and "one of the foremost examples of the relevance of social media to modern atrocity prevention & response".

Reporting by Poppy Elena McPherson; Editing by Martin Petty