28 Hate Speech Ignited: Understanding Hate Speech in Myanmar tions marked the first time in the history of Myanmar where the Parliament had no Muslim mem- bers.132 The NLD ultimately won the elections and began negotiating power sharing with the military, but the elections normalized hate speech and affirmed ultranationalist groups’ power to shape national discourse. . . . Myanmar CSOs believe that political leaders from the NLD and others associated with the pro-democracy movement should have challenged this nationalist rhetoric and stood up for the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.133 Many interviewed for this report noted that had prom- inent figures including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi taken a principled stance, the situation for persecuted communities including the Rohingya could have been quite different.134 C. Current Context: From the 2015 Elections to the Upcoming 2020 Elections The 2015 elections were historic as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won a landslide victory that ushered in the first civilian-led government in half a century.135 A few short years later, however, the political landscape had changed substantially to see the NLD and the Tatmadaw aligned more than ever before. Hate speech was a major part of the shift. The Tatmadaw’s now well-documented “clearance operations” targeting the Rohingya commu- nity in Rakhine in August 2017 occurred after the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (“ARSA”) on thirty border police outposts.136 In response, the Tatmadaw destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine State, forcing nearly a million Rohingya refugees to flee to neighboring Bangladesh in what has come to be known as the “Rohingya crisis.”137 While the military claim it is pursuing ARSA and other terrorist elements, harrowing accounts from Rohingya survivors tell another story.138 They reveal a brutal, genocidal military campaign build upon decades of systemic discrimination policies that stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship rights, rendering them stateless.139 The clearance operation had the hallmarks of the Tatmadaw’s past campaigns waged against civilians in other ethnic regions over the decades: indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians; widespread use of sexual violence, paired with dehumanizing, racist rhetoric; and complete impunity for its actions.140 The FFM was established in response to the escalating violence and human rights abuses against Rohingya in Rakhine State and ongoing armed conflict in Kachin and Shan States.141 The 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 Austin Ramzy, “After Myanmar Election, Few Signs of a Better Life for Muslims,” The New York Times, November 18, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/world/asia/myanmar-election-rohingya-muslims.html. FGD (January 2019 and December 2019). Ibid. “Myanmar’s 2015 Landmark Elections Explained,” BBC News, December 3, 2015, www.bbc.com/news/worldasia-33547036. A/HRC/39/64, para. 31-35. Ibid., para. 33. Wa Lone and Shoon Naing, “At Least 71 Killed in Myanmar as Rohingya Insurgents Stage Major Attack,” Reuters, August 24, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/at-least-71-killed-in-myanmar-as-rohingya-insurgents-stage-major-attack-idUSKCN1B507K. See generally A/HRC/39/64. Ibid., sec. V. Human Rights Council, Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar, A/HRC/42/50 (August, 2019), https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G19/236/74/PDF/G1923674.pdf?OpenElement