Myanmar says it will act against police officers after video shows beating of Rohingya Muslims

Myanmar’s government said Monday that it would take action against police officers who were shown in a video beating villagers in western Rakhine state, where tens of thousands of minority Muslims are fleeing a military crackdown.

The statement was a rare official acknowledgment of abuses in Rakhine, home to a large Muslim population known as the Rohingya, who have long suffered persecution by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority.

The Rohingya have been the main targets of a military operation that began in October after suspected Islamist militants overran several border posts and killed nine officers.

About 50,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh over the past three months, the Bangladeshi government says. Human rights groups have accused Myanmar forces of systematically torching Rohingya villages and raping and killing civilians.

The government has denied responsibility for the violence, accusing villagers of setting the fires and fabricating stories of abuse. Aid groups and journalists have been effectively barred from the area since October.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads Myanmar’s government, has remained silent on the Rohingya despite growing international pressure.

The video that emerged over the weekend was harder for officials to play down.

Widely circulated on social media and picked up by local broadcasters, the minute-long video shows dozens of male villagers seated on the ground with their hands behind their heads.

Uniformed police officers are seen beating and kicking two men repeatedly in the video, which was captured on a cellphone by a policeman.

Suu Kyi’s office said the video was taken Nov. 5 in Kotankauk, where villagers staged a demonstration during a visit to the area by foreign diplomats. Rohingya activists said police retaliated by detaining all males older than 8 for two days.