Beauty queen toppled by ‘racist’ video

YANGON: A Myanmar beauty queen said she was stripped of her pageant title after posting a graphic video accusing Muslim Rohingya militants of driving communal violence in Rakhine state, a conflict fraught with controversy in the mainly Buddhist country.

Myanmar’s army is accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya in the far west, where more than half a million of the Muslim minority have fled across the border to Bangladesh since Aug 25.

In the face of intense global condemnation, Myanmar authorities have staunchly defended the security operation as a legitimate crackdown on Rohingya militants who attacked police posts last month.

The conflict has curdled religious tensions inside Myanmar, fanning Buddhist nationalism and a hatred against the Rohingya that has been steeping for years.

In a video posted on her Facebook last week, Miss Grand Myanmar Shwe Eain Si accused the Rohingya militants of leading a “media campaign” to trick the world into thinking “they are the oppressed”.

Shots of Shwe Eain Si speaking were interspersed with graphic images of people with bloody gashes across their faces, nude babies and screenshots from videos posted by the militant group, known as Arsa (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army).

On Sunday the firm behind the beauty pageant said Shwe Eain Si had been stripped of her title for breaching contract rules.

But in a reply on Facebook, Shwe Eain Si said these accusations were “groundless” and linked the move to her comments on the Rohingya.

The firm said she “failed to project a decent image of a pageant contestant”, she wrote.