"U.N. investigator says Facebook has not shared ‘evidence’ of Myanmar crime," 11 August 2020

The head of a U.N. investigative body on Myanmar said Facebook has not released evidence of “serious international crimes”, despite vowing to work with investigators looking into abuses in the country, including against the Rohingya Muslim minority…Facebook has said it is cooperating [and] declined to immediately comment further.

Myanmar is facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a 2017 military crackdown on the Rohingya that forced more than 730,000 people to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh. Myanmar denies genocide and says its armed forces were conducting legitimate operations against militants who attacked police posts.

U.N investigators said Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fuelled the violence…“Unfortunately, to date, the Mechanism has not received any material from Facebook but our discussions continue and I am hopeful that the Mechanism will eventually receive this important evidence,” [Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar (IIMM),] said on Monday.

His comments followed a move by Facebook last week to block a bid by Gambia, which brought the genocide case against Myanmar…to obtain posts and communications by members of Myanmar’s military and police…[Facebook said the bid] would violate a U.S. law that bars electronic communication services from disclosing users’ communications.