“Can social punishment be
considered free expression?
When we don’t have justice at
all by any other means, this
could be a softer version of
achieving that. It’s hard to
say.” (FGD_02) (Male)
“FoE is one thing, hate
speech is another. We (the
public) usually forget. It’s
about liability about having
authority and responsibility
of what you say, which can be
standing up for the truth too.
It’s not about, let’s say,
bluntly and verbally abusing
somebody who has been accused
of theft. Until he or she has
been convicted as guilty,
there is a chance they can be
innocent.” (FGD_07) (Male)
“For me, I think the idea
of social punishment is not
correct, from the perspective
of human rights, it isn’t
something we should do. But
at the same time when I think
about why people do this, for
those people they cannot do
anything else anymore, so this
is their only tool to respond
to the situation. For me
personally, I don’t like the
idea of social punishment.”
(FGD_02) (Female)
“The core of the problem is we
dehumanize the other person,
we were able to say all these
things to the other, because
we dehumanize them, like with
Min Aung Hlaing. This is the
same thing we did with the
Rohingya issue, they detached
themselves, it was no longer
human to human communication,
it’s like we are talking about
some “evil” figures, something
not human anymore. […] We
shouldn’t make a habit out of
it, because once we dehumanize
a person, there is no limit to
what we can do. I believe that
is what is being done to us, I
don’t believe they see us, the
55 million people as human. […]
So, in order to salvage our
humanity and focus our goals of
winning this revolution while
keeping intact our humanity, I
think we should pay attention
to this and catch ourselves
from time to time and ask,
are we dehumanizing the other
person?” (FGD_07) (Male)
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