Facebook bans Myanmar military chief after UN report

Facebook has removed the account of the Myanmar military’s commander-in-chief and a number of other pages tied to the country on the same day that he was singled out in a UN report for war crimes against Rohingya Muslims.

The US-based social media giant said Monday that it is removing certain Myanmar military officials from the social media website and an Instagram account to prevent the spread of “hate and misinformation” after reviewing the content.

“Specifically, we are banning 20 Burmese individuals and organizations from Facebook — including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military’s Myawady television network,” Facebook said.

“We’re removing a total of 18 Facebook accounts, one Instagram account and 52 Facebook Pages, followed by almost 12 million people,” Facebook added.

The report came just as the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released a lengthy report on the crimes of Myanmar’s military against the country’s minority Rohingya Muslims.

The UN investigators said Myanmar’s army chief and five other top generals should stand trial for “genocide” and war crimes against the Rohingya.

The report also lashed out at Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi for allowing hate speech to thrive.

Last year, Myanmar’s armed forces, backed by Buddhist extremists, launched a state-sponsored crackdown campaign against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine under the pretext of a number of attacks on military posts blamed on the minority group.

The campaign forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.