On June 8, 2020, The Gambia filed an application for discovery with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The application asks the Court to compel Facebook to provide information related to the personal Facebook accounts of Myanmar officials. The information that The Gambia seeks is to be used in an action brought by The Gambia against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, The Netherlands.

In November 2019, The Gambia initiated proceedings against Myanmar at the ICJ. The application filed by The Gambia alleges that the Government of Myanmar has has been involved in  atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims, including “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting conditions that are calculated to bring about physical destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcible transfers, are genocidal in character because they are intended to destroy the Rohingya group in whole or in part” in violation of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention).

ALSO SEE- “We Rohingyas Want Good Internet Since CAMP Entry is Allowed Only for the Authorized People”- Abu Taher, A Rohingya Refugee from Kutupalong.

The Gambia’s application alleged that: “from around October 2016, the Myanmar military (the “Tatmadaw”) and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic “clearance operations” – the term that Myanmar itself uses – against the Rohingya group.

The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses. From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of “clearance operations” on a more massive and wider geographical scale.”

Read more…