The Metaverse Must Indemnify Rohingya.

The Metaverse, formerly known as Facebook is scrupulously culpable for the human rights violation suffered by Rohingya in Myanmar.

We, Rohingya people have many historical pieces of evidence and records of being an indigenous ethnic group of Myanmar, (Burma). It's also a well-known experience in the world that mostly the Rohingya people lived in Buthidaung, Maung Daw, and Rathidaung township of Rakhine/Arakan state Myanmar. Rohingya people lived peacefully together with all other ethnic groups, lived there. Rohingya people also enjoyed justice and equal rights in Myanmar.

On 2nd March 1962, general U Nay Win seized the power of the country. After getting the country under a coup, the policy of the country structurally changed against the rights of Rohingya minority people. And the violence against the Rohingya had been started in the country. We have been systematically restricted to enjoy our rights such as the right to a citizen, right to higher education, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and right to digital communication.

The feedback of Facebook for reporting against a hate speech against Rohingya.

When we were restricted to using Facebook in Myanmar, the extremists, the politicians started using it as a tool to spread hate speech and false information against us and that produced hundreds of thousands of Anti-Rohingya Citizens. They spread the Anti-Rohingya campaign all over the nation with the help of Facebook. As a result, we finally needed to leave the country in 2017, and now we are undergoing our life like in hell.

Facebook has to provide for or co-operate in the remediation of adverse human rights impacts as it contributed to these impacts in our life. We are owed a remedy by Facebook. We softly made some requests several times to Facebook, but our requests have been ignored or rejected by it.

On 29th June 2020, we, Some Rohingya Advocates from Bangladesh refugee camps sent a letter to Facebook’s Human Rights Director Miranda Sissons where we requested some support in the camps. On 20th August 2020, we attend a meeting with Miranda Sissons and made the requests specific for funding for educational activities in the Bangladesh refugee camp.

On 20th November 2020, we sent a second letter to Miranda Sissons where we requested Facebook to establish education programs in the Bangladesh refugee camp. On 10th February 2021, Facebook Human Rights Director Miranda Sissons sent us a letter rejecting our requests and said that Facebook does not engage in “philanthropic activities”.

On the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide, 9th December 2021, we, 16 Rohingya youths and leaders of the community-based organizations, from the Bangladesh refugee camp, filled a complaint against Meterverse to Ireland’s OECD National Contact Point. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) is vowed to ensure that corporations around the world respect human rights in their business practices.

Reference: https://www.victimadvocatesinternational.org/rohingyaremediation/