An official mission of the UN Human Rights Council has issued a properly scathing attack on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims. It has accused the top Myanmar generals of genocide and recommended they somehow be brought to "a competent court" for trial. The three-member committee attacked Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi for her failure to stop the criminal military actions and charged she abetted and aided them.
Predictably, this launched a firestorm on social media. The UN report was received generally favourably but had plenty of critics -- certainly not least from inside Myanmar. Facebook, in a historical internet move, banned the accounts of the army commander Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing and 19 top military men. A spokesman for the social media giant admitted it was the first time Facebook ever had acted against a country or any military, but said action was mandatory given the unique situation.
This raises serious questions. The UN investigators recommended six Myanmar generals face genocide charges, so why did Facebook ban 13 others? Even more importantly, since the UN report heaped far more blame for the Rohingya atrocities on Ms Suu Kyi, why is her account still up? It features many smiling photographs of her and the allegedly genocidal Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing.
