Users have also reportedly taken their online warfare to the United Nations’s (“U.N.”)
operations in Indonesia. On the U.N. Country Team in Indonesia’s Instagram page, more
than 90 percent of the 17,380 comments on their posts on Rohingya since November 21,
2023 have been reported as likely amounting to hate speech.23 Reports have also surfaced
of anonymous accounts identifying and publishing the personal information of UNHCR
officials in the country, thereby compromising their safety and security.24
Through online dissemination, hate speech and disinformation targeting Rohingya refugees
risk being spread to Myanmar. WPN has observed the spread of anti-Rohingya sentiment in
Myanmar on social media platforms, posted in the Burmese language, after the latest round
of protests against Rohingya refugees in Indonesia. The posts recall the campaigns of
anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim hate speech and disinformation online, namely on Facebook,
preluding the 2017 attacks of genocide in Rakhine State; Rohingya women in particular were
targeted with threats of rape and other acts of sexual violence online.25 The U.N.
Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar and other international bodies
have since widely documented and reported on the various levels of state and corporate
failures in curbing such attacks, and have rightly called for their investigations and redress.26
Detention and risk of forcible deportation
Across the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, Rohingya refugees forced into deadly sea
crossings become at high risk of detention. This can be observed in the so-called
“shelters,” to which the refugees are sent upon their disembarkation, where their freedom of
movement or safety and protection are not fully guaranteed despite receiving some level of
international humanitarian aid. These shelters are assessed in the context of immigration
detention centers and related facilities across South and Southeast Asia. In Malaysia,
approximately 2,675 Rohingya have been held indefinitely in 12 immigration detention
23
ASEAN Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship, “Joint Solidarity Statement: Confronting the Influence of Online Hate
Campaigns in the Forced Explusion of Rohingya from Indonesia.”
24
“Indonesia: Protect Newly Arrived Rohingya Refugees: Investigate, Prevent Anti-Rohingya Violence in Aceh.”
25
Wai Wai Nu and Rin Fujimatsu, “‘RAPE HER’: Gendered Hate Speech against Rohingya Women,” Arrow for
Change no. 1 (26): 9-11 (2020),
https://arrow.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AFC_Right-to-Freedom-of-Speech-Expression.pdf; “Submission
to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar,” Women’s Peace Network,
December 22, 2022,
https://mcusercontent.com/6819ae24e30bd9a9db0322d69/files/26d70440-2c00-eae4-42e1-205b60c2d56a/_12_
22_WPN_Submission_to_SR_Myanmar.pdf.
26
United Nations, Human Rights Council, Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar,
A/HRC/39/64 (12 September 2018), available from undocs.org/en/A/HRC/39/64; “The social atrocity: Meta and the
right to remedy for the Rohingya,” Amnesty International, September 29, 2022,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA16/5933/2022/en/.
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