JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH
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Figure 3. Circa 2014. Source: Author’s files.
minorities.”61 These discussions identified six narratives that reinforce an “overarching
meta-narrative of Buddhist-Burman dominance;” the sixth is that “those [who] question
or challenge the aforementioned … are ‘race traitors’ and foreign agents who are
equally dangerous to the nation.”62 Activists cited in the report described relationships
with friends and kin made tense, even destroyed, when they voiced such challenges.
Others described the effects of concern for such outcomes. “People … fear being
kicked out of their society more than being physically attacked,” said one activist. “So
even if people disagree with ultranationalism, they prefer to stay silent.”63
Ignited highlighted attacks on journalists and human rights defenders and argued that
harassment by ultranationalists was having a broad “chilling effect.”64 Reports from rights
organizations focused on freedom of expression raised similar concerns.65 So too did the
2018 UN Fact-Finding Mission Report.66 “The Mission has seen many similar cases where
individuals, usually human rights defenders or journalists, become the target of an online
hate campaign that incites or threatens violence,” it wrote, after describing an incident in
which an activist alleged to have helped the Mission was subjected to a campaign on
Facebook. Posts calling him a “national traitor” were shared or copied more than 1,000
times, accompanied by comments calling for his murder.67 Even the human rights
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
Progressive Voice et al., Hate Speech Ignited, 2, 13.
Ibid., 3, 39–56.
Ibid., 84.
Ibid., 69.
Human Rights Watch, Dashed Hopes: The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Myanmar (February 2019), 76–7;
Shawn W. Crispin, “Threats, Arrests, and Access Denied as Myanmar Backtracks on Press Freedom,” Committee to
Protect Journalists, 12 February 2018; PEN America, Unfinished Freedom: A Blueprint for the Future of Free Expression
in Myanmar (2015), 22–3.
IIFFMM, 315–20.
Ibid., 341–2.