Twitter CEO criticized for no mention of Rohingya plight in Myanmar tweets

SINGAPORE: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has come under fire for tweets about his meditation retreat in Myanmar and encouraging people to visit the country without mentioning what the United Nations has described as ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled a sweeping army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017, according to UN agencies. The crackdown was launched in response to insurgent Rohingya attacks on security forces.

Rohingya refugees say soldiers and Buddhist civilians killed families, burned many villages and carried out gang rapes. U.Nmandated investigators have accused Myanmar’s army of ‘genocidal intent’. Myanmar has denied the allegations, saying its forces engaged in a counterinsurgency operation against ‘terrorists’.

“Myanmar is an absolutely beautiful country. The people are full of joy and the food is amazing. I visited the cities of Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan. We visited and meditated at many monasteries around the country,” Dorsey tweeted on Sunday.

His tweets included pictures of the barren room where he stayed at a monastery during the retreat, as well as an analysis of his heart rate while meditating. There was no reference to the plight of the Rohingya in any of the tweets.

“I’m no expert on meditation, but is it supposed to make you so self- obsessed that you forget to mention you’re in a country where the military has committed mass killings & mass rape, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, in one of today’s biggest humanitarian disasters?,” tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director of Human Rights Watch.

Twitter spokeswoman Kate Hayes said in an email she had no comment on the criticism.