26 Hate Speech Ignited: Understanding Hate Speech in Myanmar understand the problem.118 According to local activists, the ban is worrying as it limits ethnic minority communities’ ability to present their views while allowing state security forces to continue to disseminate (mis)information.119 While attention during the post-2010 period has often focused on social media’s role in hate speech, such speech in Myanmar has not been limited to the online realms. Consistent with Myan- mar’s long history of seeding intolerance, an “offline culture of hate” has been propagated through large scale nationalist rallies and other media such as DVDs, books, journals, pamphlets, and speaker carts.120 Books like Islamization and A Myo Pyaut Hmar Soe Kyaut Sayar (Fearing the Extinction of Our Race), which the government had banned in the past, are currently in wide circulation.121 These books state that the greatest threat to Buddhism is Islam and that inaction will lead to the disappearance of Buddhism and Myanmar in a hundred years.122 Addressing hate speech in Myanmar requires an understanding of the key constructed narra- tives, the main drivers of the rhetoric, and how online and offline channels have been used to spread hate speech. These will be presented in Part III of this report. Race, religion, and identity politics became a major focus of the 2015 elections – for ethnic minorities, ultranationalist groups, the military, or political parties like the NLD and the USDP.123 For example, peace and political talks between the government, the Tatmadaw, and EAOs were of great importance to ethnic minorities and factored into who they would support in the elections.124 Addi- tionally, the ultranationalist groups, 969 and Ma Ba Tha, campaigned openly in support of the USDP.125 Both groups urged people to vote for the incumbent USDP, asserting that the party would better pro- tect race and religion than the NLD.126 969 and Ma Ba Tha also conducted “voter education” sessions where the underlying message was that a vote for NLD could grant citizenship rights to the Rohingya, weaken national security, and make Myanmar vulnerable to Jihadist threats.127 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 Julia Carrie Wong, “‘Overreacting to Failure’: Facebook’s New Myanmar Strategy Baffles Local Activists,” The Guardian, February 7, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/07/facebook-myanmar-genocide-violence-hate-speech. Ibid. See, e.g., Search for Common Ground, Key Findings and Recommendations: Stakeholder Mapping of Countering Hate Speech in Myanmar - External Report (January 2018), 4, https://www.sfcg.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SFCG-Stakeholder-Mapping-Report-external-20Nov2017-FINAL-for-printing.pdf. Human Rights Council, Report of the Detailed fFndings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, A/HRC/39/CRP.2 (September 2018), para. 697. Ibid. Oliver Holmes, “Myanmar’s Muslims Win No Seats in New Parliament,” The Guardian, November 15, 2015, https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/15/myanmars-muslims-win-no-seats-in-new-parliament; Human Rights Watch, “Burma Elections 2015: The Politics of Hate and Exclusion,” November 3, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/blogfeed/burma-elections-2015. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.