82 Hate Speech Ignited: Understanding Hate Speech in Myanmar Activists described also receiving physical threats, such as warnings that they would be killed.549 One activist described that in response to a critical post on Facebook in which he criticized how the government has handled gold mining and natural resources in Shan State, he “was threatened by a businessman telling him, ‘Old man, your life is not even worth 50,000 Kyat.”550 Hate speech directly calling for violence has also led to dangerous attacks on individuals whose identities have become known to oppose ultranationalists or the authorities. For instance, Journalist Kyaw Lin was stabbed by two individuals while reporting in Sittwe, Rakhine State.551 In another ex- ample, one activist explained that before an anti-war protest was held in Tarmwe, Yangon on May 12, 2018, “Ma Ba Tha nationalists were publicly declaring that they would beat and crack down on the protestors.”552 After police surrounded the protesters on site, “they jumped into the crowd and start- ed pulling, beating, and arresting the protestors” while the police watched.553 Another representative of a CSO described a personal experience that almost escalated to violence: The anti-Muslim nationalist U Nay Myo Wai, one of the many who spread hate speech online, accused us of relating to ISIS [Islamic State] because the flag on our religious buildings [mosques] looks similar to ISIS’s flag. . . . They claimed that ISIS arrived in Yangon, and a big angry group of nationalists showed up at our mosque and demand- ed to remove the flag. There was an angry crowd on the street. We had to finally agree to remove the flag to avoid the conflict. When that happened, we also realized that no one was trying to protect us, and even our Muslim community couldn’t do anything.554 Gendered Violence and Social Media Targeting As mentioned earlier in the report, women activists, journalists, human rights defenders, politicians and leaders in minority communities are particularly vulnerable to gendered attacks against them. This includes calls and threats of physical and sexual violence, sexual harassment online, lurid sexist language, the posting of demeaning imagery and morphed sexual images, and sharing of personal information online without their consent.555 One female activist described how these tactics were utilized against her: People are using a different strategy. When people want to attack me, they might send me a direct message, not public, and threaten me through private messages so I can’t report it. At the same time, they post a status indirectly saying something, but not 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 using any hate speech. They are more experienced—they are getting more aware that Ibid.; FGD (January 2019 and December 2019). 001-R2-02, 3-4. Reed, “Hate Speech, Atrocities and Fake News.” 002-R4-04, 2. Ibid. 002-R3-03, 1. FGD (January 2019 and December 2019).