Myanmar's Rohingya sue Facebook for enabling 'genocide'

Rohingya Muslims have sued Facebook in US and UK, alleging the social media giant ignored hate speech and inflammatory posts against the ethnic group in Myanmar leading to the "genocide" of its members there. 

Facebook was "willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in south-east Asia," British newspaper The Guardian cited a complaint lodged with a court in San Francisco on Monday. 

"In the end, there was so little for Facebook to gain from its continued presence in Burma, and the consequences for the Rohingya people could not have been more dire. Yet, in the face of this knowledge, and possessing the tools to stop it, it simply kept marching forward," the class action complaint said. 

The social media giant faces compensation claims worth nearly $200 billion under the coordinated move in both the countries, The Guardian reported.

A letter sent by law firm McCue Jury & Partners to Facebook's UK office said that a campaign of genocide was conducted by the ruling regime and civilian extremists in Myanmar which was "fomented by extensive material published on and amplified by the Facebook platform," the newspaper reported. 

The McCue letter said: "Despite Facebook’s recognition of its culpability and its pronouncements about its role in the world, there has not been a single penny of compensation, nor any other form of reparations or support, offered to any survivor."

Campaign with 'genocidal intent'

More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar to Bangladesh in 2017 to escape a military-led crackdown that UN investigators have said was carried out with "genocidal intent" and included mass killings and rapes.

Myanmar has denied widespread atrocities, framing the violence as a response to attacks by Rohingya rebels.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise Rohingya as citizens and they face severe curbs on freedom of movement as well as access to healthcare and education.

Myanmar denies persecuting Rohingya and says they are not an indigenous ethnic group but immigrants from South Asia, even though many Rohingya are able to trace their ancestry back centuries.