UN Investigation Team In Myanmar Asks Facebook To Submit Evidence Of Hate Speech On Their Platform

Hate speech on Facebook could be the first evidence of violence in Myanmar. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - The head of the United Nations investigative team in Myanmar said on Friday November 5 that he hoped Facebook would provide their team with more information to gather evidence of the most serious international crime since 2011.

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) aims to build case files for proceedings in national, regional, or international courts. The organization was founded in 2018 by the United Nations Human Rights Council and began work the following year.

Facebook previously said it was working with the IIMM. In 2018, UN human rights investigators said the social media site had spread hate speech that fueled violence. Facebook said it was working to block the hate speech.

"We started engaging with Facebook as soon as we were created in 2019. They have been meeting with us regularly," Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Geneva-based IIMM, told reporters in New York on Friday.

“We have received some, but certainly not all that we asked for. We continue to negotiate with them and actually, I hope we will receive more information. I know that there are some of our requests that they are considering," Koumjian was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Myanmar faces genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a 2017 military crackdown on the Rohingya that forced more than 730.000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar denies genocide and says its armed forces are carrying out legitimate operations against insurgents attacking police posts.