On the Layla Shweikani Issue

December 29, 2018

In late November, news broke that a dual US-Syrian citizen was killed in detention in a Syrian prison, some two years earlier. Layla Shweikani (Arabic: ليلى شويكاني ) was a U.S.-born Chicago native, educated as a software engineer. But she went to Syria in 2015, ostensibly, to help displaced people in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta.

The area was run by Saudi-backed hardline Islamists Jaish Al-Islam, who apparently approved of her work. Other women activists there, like Razan Zaitouneh, have been arrested and killed by JaI for challenging their harsh policies. But it seems Shweikani was arrested by the Syrian authorities instead, and is believed by most to have been executed following on torture, and surely for no real crime except trying to help the Syrian people.

Since I don't follow the news closely, my first view happened to be via Tony Cartalucci at Land Destroyer on December 15, panning "a particularly scurrilous op-ed appeared in the pages of the Washington Post" two days earlier which, he argues, lacked "any actual evidence" for the allegations. He also considers a report in the UK Independent, which featured more explicit evidence. But as he accurately put it, the source for that was "dubious activists relying on second and even third-hand accounts."

- Washington Post article by Jason Rezaian (soon arrested in Iran, tried, and convicted for espionage, as noted).
- The Independent article by Richard Hall

In this post, I'll offer a reasoned rundown of what we supposedly know, and what we don't really know, and what possibilities exist.

The first 33 months of silence
Activists are pressing president Trump, with apparent futility, to impose penalties, and shaming the public and media for supposedly ignoring the crime. For example, rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told WaPo's Rezaian in early December “It’s disheartening that there not only has been no outrage over the murder of an American by the Assad regime, but that there has been little to no coverage on her story by our national media.” The story had by then been making limited rounds for perhaps two weeks, with little evidence yet and, as it turns out, emerging from the blue with zero preludes or prior reports.

As people are guilt-tripped for silence over this crime, it should be noted everyone including her family, her government, and Syrian activist groups failed to make any public mention of the case in nearly three years since her reported arrest in February, 2016. WaPo: "She was being held in solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world." For some reason , even the people who knew she was in there didn't make one-way contact possible by speaking of her case.

Opposition records often give clues, and my primary source is the databases of the Center for Documentation of Violations (or VDC). It's pretty exhaustive up to a point, but never got a report of her as detained or killed. This seems to be the proper spelling of the fairly rare name in question: شويكاني
The VDC lists 2 men of this name killed, a civilian in 2014, a militant in 2015, both from Mleha, E. Ghouta. No women or children appear. For detainees, they list just 4 men, 3 in mid-2012 and one in late 2013 (one is from Daraya, the rest from Mleha). None since, no Shweikani women. (there's also a database for missing, which lists zero Shweikanis.)

So she didn't make it into this source. Nor did her father, nor probably her fiance. A decent internet search suggests no one else anywhere reported her arrest or detention or worries, prior to the recent news. On Twitter, I found Tweets featuring her name in Arabic first appear, just barely, on November 26 of this year, come in heavy in the following days, and sporadically since. It seems no one spoke of her prior to that.

I don't what this means, if anything, but it's odd. Detained activists are usually named as heroes and supported with protests, petitions, hashtag campaigns, etc. But here, a U.S. citizen activist and some family members are detained February 2016, contact was made with U.S. Government help 10 months later (see below), execution should have seemed likely or imminent (see below), and then contact was lost for two years, apparently with no clarification from Damascus ... and still no public note or complaint of the missing U.S. citizen, the detained activist facing execution, perhaps already killed.

But the Syrian government just now (sometime in November) confirmed her death, on December 28, 2016, through an update to its civil registry. It doesn't say she was executed, or was even in jail, just that she died. Other information might well clarify that, but that information might be untrue, in whole or part.

Then, suddenly everybody knows just when and where she died, and were able to speak about it. The explanation they'd give is they knew where she was and how she would have died if she had. But since the regime cruelly refused to confirm the killing, uncertainty over her fate and perhaps some kind of threats made them keep quiet about it (like maybe they would kill her as soon as anyone spoke up). In that case, perhaps a Syrian affirmation of hear death was taken as credible proof of something they highly suspected, and was enough to shake their tongues free.

That's entirely possible, but I suspect the abnormal quiet is some kind of a clue to the hidden truth of this story. For now, it's just worth noting.

Anyway, considering everyone else's silence for nearly three years,  I don't feel so slow in catching the story and following up with this starter post that winds up just missing the mark of two years since her death, and one month after the first anyone heard of her.

How we know she was in jail
My main question in general with tortured detainees is whether they ever were prisoners of the Syrian government, rather than of opposition groups with their own genocide plans (see Fail Caesar part 6 for well-founded doubts even in those cases that have supposed photo proof). But here, it seems Layla Shweikani was held in Syrian prison, and did presumably die there, possibly in an execution. So the usual line of questioning is - barring a surprise revelation - out the window.

Since Washington withdrew its meddling, hostile "ambassador" to Syria, Robert Ford, early in the engineered conflict, the U.S. pursued Shweikani's case through the Czech ambassador to Damascus, Eva Filipi. As the Independent reported, "ten months after she was first detained, on 18 December 2016, Filipi visited Shweikani in Adra prison on behalf of the US government."

It's a logical possibility that ambassador Filipi fabricated this visit to help sow a false story of the detained American activist - especially considering the case of Robert Ford. But it's surely not an accusation I'm making. As a professional politician outside the Jihadist deception network (alleged inmates at the prison, etc. are always suspect), she's presumably trustworthy - on basic facts like this anyway.

The government officials and reporters passing on news of her meeting are probably doing it correctly enough. Important context is probably left off, but  I presume this visit was real, and so: Ms. Shweikani was held at Adra prison as of December 18, and the Syrian government acknowledged that fact by granting the visit that proved it. And unless she was released in the interim (which seems unlikely) the same authorities' claim she died somewhere, somehow, ten days later, means she died in prison. Execution is obviously one way that happens.

In his report, Tony Cartalucci added some questioning of the WaPo journalist Josh Rogin, who acknowledged "we don't know the specifics of Layla's death ... Thank you for that caution. ... But the regime is responsible for her death, in their custody." From this, we can say Rogin is pretty sure she was in jail when she died, and can only claim general responsibility based on that. And that's probably accurate enough while the rest is, in fact, hearsay. And there's been a lot of that regarding Syria, that either goes untested or fails a test.

The charges and Shweikani's uncertain fate
Without explaining how this was known, the article claims the prisoner admitted to the leveled charges, but only after "Shweikani had been threatened by Syrian authorities that they would harm her family if she did not confess to the ambassador to the crimes she had been accused of, which she then did."

If this is true, she said in the meeting that she was guilty. The claim that this was extracted under threat is suspect; there's little reason to know what happens inside torture chambers at Adra prison. Was this just a guess? 

What were the charges? Most sources are vague, saying it was related to "terrorism." But Richard Hall wrote for the Independent how Layla was arrested sometime in February, 2016, "along with her father and her fiancé. She was charged with planning to assassinate members of the Syrian government."

First off, Hall can't know what the charges actually were - his activist source almost surely filled in this detail, as he did for most relevant details. And as we'll discuss next, he doesn't seem very trustworthy. But if this is the charge - and it should be the one she claimed to be guilty of, before an ambassador and a judge, if so - it would probably be known early on; her family probably learned of it from or before the December 18 meeting with ambassador Filipi. It's surely a death penalty crime, and execution should be expected with little delay, justified or otherwise. And at some point, as I'll explain next, they learned she had been sentenced to death in a December 26 trial that lasted 30 seconds. Yet, as the Independent reports, until the 2018 confirmation...

"Since there was no official confirmation of her death at that time, Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive, and that she would be released. From the time they lost contact with her at the end of 2016, the Czech ambassador continued to make enquiries about her with the Syrian government and the case was followed by the then US envoy to Syria, Michael Ratney." 

That sounds like it's missing something. The Americans must have been given no clear answer? Why would Damascus deny a supposedly valid execution for terrorism? Did they actually send an answer but the Americans - for example - "misplaced" it, in order to maintain the illusion of a horrible injustice and cause for yet more "pressure on Damascus"? There are open questions here.

Another way of looking at it; a US citizen was allegedly involved in assassination plots in Syria - and no one mentions her detention, least of all the U.S. government, until Damascus brings up her name first in 2018. That could be coincidence, or might help clarify what caused that unusual silence.

Qutaiba Idlibi's "Research"
Alleged threats behind Shweikani's confession to ambassador Filipi were mentioned above. It's not clear how these were learned of, but that's presumably some of the prolific detective work by "Qutaiba Idlbi​, a researcher who works with the relatives of Syrian detainees," as cited for the Independent, not in the WaPo piece. After stumbling on his Twitter account (first tweet mentioning her case - Nov. 27, 2018) I asked him about that finding in particular: "Are you the source for that claim? How was it learned of?" (awaiting a response...)

Based on info he gathered (when?), Hall at the Independent would report:

"What happened next was discovered by Idlbi through testimony of other inmates at Adra prison, where she was held, and contact with Syrian officials after the fact."

"...Eight days later [Dec. 26], Shweikani was taken from Adra prison to a military court, where she was asked to answer to the charges against her. “The trial is basically one question: ‘Do you admit to the accusations?’ Layla said yes, due to the threats on her family’s life,” says Idlbi.  “Through an official, we found out that a judge sentenced her to execution for terrorism. The trial lasted 30 seconds.”

The trial part would be internal. It would almost require a functioning insider to witness it or know a witness. Luckily, Idlibi claims, there was an unnamed official sympathetic to the opposition who knew of these details and leaked them to this researcher. It's not clear when he pulled this convenient trick, but presumably well after the fact. These details would make her death pretty certain, as they seem to do now. Yet for years, this info was apparently not available as "Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive, and that she would be released."

I suspect this 'sympathetic insider' only 'stepped forward' in November 2018, as if to bolster the government's new listing, as if he had no clue before, or maybe had just forgotten until the registry update jogged his memory. But it seems likely he only handed over these long-quiet details, to support more opposition claims, in the days before Idlibi would finally 'reveal' his own ongoing research.

Otherwise, this "researcher" Idlibi relies - as many other opposition propagandists do - on alleged prisoners who saw detainees here and there, and bring this up upon their alleged release. In this case, I suspect all such source were 'released' suddenly in late November, 2018, just as that official came out to help Idlibi with his big debut as a world-stage research guy.

Here's another little puzzle - following a trial on December 26, as Richard Hall heard it:

"According to Idlbi, Shweikani was then transferred to the infamous Saydnaya prison, just outside of the capital. “Since then our assumption is that she was definitely killed. Because usually you are executed within 48 hours [of a verdict],” he says."  

So it was illogically that "Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive" - at least, once this presumption was formed (just when is unclear - when someone who saw it was allegedly released?) And from that point forward, this outlandish fantasy somehow underpinned their continued public silence, until the regime finally admitted it on their own.

Furthermore, the presumed date, known since whenever, happens to match exactly what they Syrian government had just confirmed - December 28 (transferred Dec. 26, usually killed within 48 hours). Are they really that predictable, or is this a fake prediction fitted to the revelation after-the-fact? The latter option remains open anyway, since Idlibi waited two years for this regime confirmation before raising any public complaints.

In support, the article notes how the Syrian Network for Human Rights also "believes she was executed on 28 December 2016." The SNHR is a western-funded pro-regime change front propaganda group, as Cartalucci notes. It's also the more shrill, partisan propagandist cousin of the widely-cited Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, from which it branched off following an early dispute. The SNHR, not the SOHR, endorse the claims brought by Mr. Idlibi, which means nothing. It blames Assad, so they agree. (that's not to say the western-funded SOHR would NOT endorse the story...)

As Cartalucci notes, Idlibi's status as an opposition member means he lacks neutrality as a witness and further, he might be repaying favors to a hostile state; "Qutaiba Idlbi lives in the United States after receiving a scholarship to study at Columbia University," as Cartalucci found with a bit of his own research. I can add it says Columbia student right on his Twitter profile. More research on this chap may be in order. But even as I'm sure Idlibi is researching me now (as if that matters), I probably won't bother much. My questions are those raised here, and digging around won't answer them. Some discussion with him might provide clues, however. I am going to pursue that.

What Remains
Idlibi's research might still be partly or totally true. I doubt that, but doubt is just what it is. Otherwise, there are other possibilities for the few solid facts here:

1. she was executed legitimately, for a serious crime she was guilty of (or reasonably considered guilty)
2. she was executed illegitimately, on false charges (I take it as my job to question such claims, not rule them out absent a very good reason)
3. She died of natural causes, illness, etc. It happens in jails and prisons everywhere. (but that would mean her charges, confessions, and perhaps trial and sentencing to death at the same time are coincidental)

There are also standing questions over the government's actions. At least as the stories imply, her family was never informed, obviously not given her body. Washington and the Czech ambassador pursued the case, we hear. They must have been misled/uninformed over the execution. I'm not convinced that's the reality, but it could well be. There are different possible reasons, some of them reasonable, why Damascus might stay quiet on this execution in particular. But certainly that secrecy would feed into narratives like those circulating now.

And let's consider the troubling precedents and prior allegations that make these stories seem likely enough most won't even bother with specific evidence. What we think we know about Assad's secret prison killing machine includes mass arrests of innocents, inhumane conditions, routine torture, false confessions, and mass executions, thought to have been ramped up lately. This is; all alleged, with the allegations widely credited. Like most, Layla is said to have been killed at Sednaya prison, the "human slaughterhouse" as decried by Amnesty International in a report I considered here.

It's widely accepted there must be a system to this mass killing, some order for it coming from on high. There probably should be, if it's real. In fact anti-Syria investigators have gathered close to a million pages of top secret documents seized from overrun government facilities, etc. But despite the public bluster, these "Assad Files" apparently reveal no such orders. The best examples they can find to even suggest it note some beatings and some torture have occurred in Syrian prisons. But officials are only seen - talking candidly and secretly between themselves - calling these "mistakes" and ordering that it be stopped. Oversight is proposed. Some deaths by disease are also noted; officials secretly suggested more attention to cleanliness to minimize that. (see here) The orders TO starve, neglect and mass exterminate the prisoners ... yet to be found, just like the orders to shoot or arrest peaceful protesters.

The torture part of Layla's tale might be a specific from Idlibi's supposed insider, or simply inferred from the record of allegations and the supposed proof in the "Caesar photos," said to show "torture." Tony Cartalucci noted this:

"Part of [WaPo reporter Josh] Rogin’s diversions included references to the 2013 “Caesar photographs,” which Rogin would claim were “verified” by the FBI. US Representative Kinzinger is also fond of invoking the photographs which were allegedly smuggled out of Syria and reportedly depict Syrians "tortured then executed" by the Syrian government. "

"What Rogin failed to mention was that the photographs were “verified” only as undoctored by the FBI who never once stepped foot in Syria to investigate or verify the identities of or circumstances surrounding those depicted in the photographs."

This is true and well-put. They are genuine photos, mostly or all taken at an official location in Damascus near Assad's palace. But where did these thousands of real and emaciated bodies come from? I've made a huge project of analyzing these photos (not all published, but a lot of work is collected here). For a nine month span, the bodies came thorough at a rate of about 1,000/month. This is a huge crime. The circumstances deserve careful consideration, not the easily-convinced, almost kneejerk Assad blame they were greeted with.

Some photo evidence and considerable logic suggest those thousands of men and boys (and one woman) were prisoners of the local terrorists (see again FC6). Most likely, that would be the same Jaish Al-Islam that freely kidnaps non-Sunni civilians and uses them how it sees fit (see Fail Caesar part 8), and also seemingly approved of Layla Shewikani's work with "displaced people." Knowing they had a sympathetic insider at the morgue end ("Caesar"), I think they killed off most of the huge number of prisoners they held, forged "regime prisoner" numbers on the bodies they dumped for the government to process as unknown. Then, I suspect, the insider "confirmed" those numbers with his own unofficial morgue photos of the victims, to make it all look official.  Even many opposition sources support my hunch that most of the victims are captured Syrian army soldiers and the like (allegedly, they had "tried to defect" - see here).

So there's little documented reason to be sure this torture-killing of innocents by the "Assad regime"  is a real thing, let alone the obvious explanation for Ms. Shweikani's fate. We should still be applying some skepticism to the specific evidence and, as we see above, finding it doesn't hold much weight on its own. It needs these precedents to be real, but they probably aren't.

Remember Nabil Sharbaji
At least some detainee stories seem to be simply made up, or grossly embellished. Consider the case of Nabil Sharbaji, arrested at the uprising's start in March, 2011, but quickly released, detained again in Feb. 2012 for helping start an opposition newspaper, and held for longer. In late 2012, he allegedly wrote down the names and details of some 82 cellmates at Adra prison - in blood and rust with a chicken bone, on scraps of rough cloth, and seemingly illegible - as highlighted in a presentation and documentary film sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Then he was arrested a third time at the end of January, 2013. That last arrest is suspicious, going ignored by most sources, and following on an even more-ignored release. He may have been in real jail before, was released twice, and was then kidnapped into a terrorist dungeon for the final and fatal stretch. (see my analysis for this and the following details). It should be noted he, like most highlighted over such fates, was always opposed to violence and Islamism. If anyone had a reason to kill him, it would be the violent Islamists taking over his neighborhood. And yet it was the cruel Assad regime, we hear, arrested everyone nice, forcing the rebellion to turn violent and Islamist...

As it happens the 82-names list - some pile of cloth - was allegedly hidden in the cuffs and collar of one shirt and smuggled out by Mansour Al-Omari, who also ran the VDC's detainee database (that never listed Layla). According to this man and that database, Sharbaji was never released after the second arrest; he kept sending out notes from the regime prisons (mostly with ink and paper and smuggled in unspecified ways) long enough to disprove rumors he was killed in April. The notes continued up to August, 2013, with sightings and an alleged prison visit in October, 3013. But then there's no news I could find for over three years before, in late 2016, the same Mansour Al-Omari revealed how his friend Nabil had been killed two years earlier; "He died in the Saydnaya military prison after a jailer kicked him in the chest" on May 3, 2015.

This would have happened two months after Sharbaji  was reliably identified (March, 2015 - see second VDC martyr's entry) in a "Caesar photo" looking like he died of suffocation. But it's dated February, 2013, and no Caesar photos show bodies later than mid-August of that year. (Alleged sightings continue into October - just long enough to 'clarify' he lived past the photo collection.) But that really looks like him, and timeline analysis supports this is the right basic time for that body number to pass through, probably about two weeks after that murky third arrest. Unless the ID is wrong, he was dead before most of the smuggled notes attributed to him, and some of the alleged sightings. He might still have written that famous 82-names list before he died, but you know ... I just don't buy that either. I find that evidence almost ludicrous in and of itself.

It's worth remembering Nabil at this time, and wondering how widely this kind of embellishment happens. Maybe something of the like plays into the stories about Layla Shweikani's death for no crime, under systematic torture ordered by the brutal Assad regime.

Trial by Word Salad

"Douma Hostage Massacre": Trial by Word Salad
November 10, 2018

I recently resurrected the old Douma Hostage Massacre story of August, 2012 (ACLOS), seeing how it hadn't stuck very well before - I produced an undeniable clarified visual match, with explanation of all the coincidences required to evade the conclusion: Islamist militants slaughtered the same soldiers and policemen they had just arrested, and passed the bodies off as innocent "youths" killed by "Assad's thugs."

As noted there, the story originates with a brilliant German woman, Ursula Behr, who recently died of cancer, partly spurring this review. Anyone who's seen that and doesn't like it might be wondering how to challenge the obvious-seeming evidence. The rest of this post shows how you don't do it - folks, do not attempt this jack-ass behavior at home.

A different class of responses from a wider pool of respondents wisely emphasizes not engaging the evidence, and will be covered in another post. Now, we look at the best and only challenge that grudgingly considers the primary evidence in a very poor manner.

"Rami" (@DyingSlow on Twitter) is a self-described Atheist Syrian living in Canada, who has fiercely adopted every claim of the Sunni-extremist mainstream of the uprising - especially their line that there are no extremists. His avatar shows White Helmets as the standard "Heores." As a SYRIAN he claims intimate knowledge of events, authority to speak for all Syrians, who all oppose Assad and rose up peacefully, none of whom are Islamists, or criminal, ever, and received no outside help. And he knows about this … somewhow. He claims connections in Syria, but all the points he brings are from the same dubious mainstream sources anyone can link to.

This Atheist supporter of the non-Jihad also gets to be an expert on events in Libya somehow. And Iran, everywhere else of interest to the global takfiri project. And he's also on occasion an expert on video artifacting, and psychology, and whatever else... just enough to uphold every major Jihadist trope, no matter how widely discredited. He seems to think Iran and Shi'ism as the sole source of Islamism and oppression in the world. And maybe Communism. He's best known for the phrase "misguided foreigner Putin's troll," which he uses nearly once per tweet on average when he's in "debate" mode. His displays of idiocy were so conspicuous and then sporadic my doubts led to the question - finally explained better here - can they really be this stupid? I decided in this case, no - he was playing dumb to invite *education* that's really just his way of wasting your time.

But this is all general portrait, sort of broad-strokes impression, and not the main subject, which is how he handled the findings Ursula Behr originated in 2012. he's the only one to remain engaged - I suspect to keep wasting my time - to awkwardly deny the evidence up-close in more detail. So he offers a preview of what lies ahead to those who persist and don't block me right off, and a good reason why, perhaps, the others decided to cut it short.

But even with Rami, it took a while to get there.

Initial Dancing Around the Subject: video, language, and doubt
First, Rami didn't take to talking about it, because he was sure I had no such videos, maybe used some misattributed video for the still I had shown so far, in a totally fake case.

(minor errors in the details I offered here - and throughout, rushed typos - apologies - trying to waste that time, but minimize it a bit at the same time...)

I find one copy of one of the bodies video I can link to, and he seems unsurprised that it's actually real, not a hallucination or a troll-lie. (Because he knew it was real all along?) With no hint of regret for that false lead, he instantly started claiming I don't understand the claims, or Arabic, and I'm changing the meaning and casting doubt on the whole language - because I disbelieve the video's claims. The title auto-translates fine, to say what Rami says it says, and I presume the narration says the same. I just don't buy what it says. but  if I could understand it myself, without a translator, he suggests I'd realize the claims were somehow all true. But that makes no sense, considering the same men are also seen held by local militants, not by regime forces. That's simply not a language issue.

This is where a reasonable moron who's not on a time-wasting mission should finally start to get that he was ranting from confusion, and he should go and sort it out before continuing. I thought he might be, due to a coincidence in noise patterns. But Rami soon continued with no sign of learning. Some remixed responses

Little-known fact for those like Rami, who doubt every claim from the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, always formally issued in Arabic … people can lie in Arabic! A corollary of that; when they do, it should be disputed. Publicly, Rami would agree to that. But he offered no evidence the video title was true, nor the presumably matching narrative, by people with access to these recently-massacred Syrians. All he could do is repeat what it said, point out that it's in Arabic, as if that guarantees its veracity. And that's not my language, so I have no right to translate and make sense of it... and/or I did it wrong … he doesn't specify.

Several people clicked like on his sharp little assertions to that effect, apparently thinking he'd gotten us in some lie or error.

I mention I've got 2 videos here, both translated fine. He keeps on about the one I dispute the honesty of. Then I managed to flip this around to discuss the other video he had ignored so far, showing the men as captives of the militants, seeing if we can get to the point here … 

No we did not agree! Of course, it can never be that way with this self-appointed spokesman for all Syrians...

So next Rami challenges my reading of this other video's content and translation, calling me "hopeless" for making such suspect errors (see tweets below). As it happens, he had no valid basis. He asserted the captives are all military men, and did not include any policemen as I said, and that the group contains a senior officer. I never denied there was a senior officer, and in fact I helped explain (in case he missed it?) he's a police brigadier, not military. Or anyway Abd-al-Bari Abdullah says his post is at Damascus police HQ (a military unit based there?). Another man introduces himself as "Farouk Ismail, policeman." He's one of the 6 apparently seen dead. The other 14, it seems, are military; 3 officers (2 are "first assistant" - equates with warrant officer first class - and one is "assistant recruit," unclear equation), and 11 men who introduce themselves a "military recruit" or just "recruit."

That was all in Arabic, of course. I have a hard time picking out spoken Arabic, and only know a few handfuls of words anyway. I can assemble words letter-by-letter, recognize most letters, and can sound out words, if not understand the meaning - I have some grasp at least (good with languages, and been working with this one for 7 years now). Luckily, Amin2511 on Twitter - who knows it more natively - was my transcriptionist to get the text I could work with. A few others could have, but he's been available lately, and real good. I take that text and post it, and auto-translate with double-checking and refinements. Amin usually reviews it and helps with any rough spots. 

Our process isn't foolproof (some unclear audio, rank translation not so clear, etc.), but it's at least basically correct. I like being hands-on and going word-by-word, and unlocking that evidence. Cool process, good results. And so far Rami can only point to errors that don't really exist. I asked him twice to show the translation errors he implied, and he refused, citing "fun."

I contend: he lied, in a malicious effort to waste more time and cast more doubt. Amin speaks Arabic fine, actually was helpful, made no errors anyone can point to, AND shared the same healthy skepticism of the claims made in his own language - he too disputes the claims lodge by men apparently linked to the murderers. Who accepts their illogical claims? Rami, who makes up fake content just to cast doubt, laboring to maintain ignorance here. He makes it look easy and "fun," but this is serious work he must have some reason for undertaking.

Finally, The Argument! It's Some Coincidence
I was getting ready to pull together his acknowledged detention of those military-police guys with their being the same men shown dead, when Amin2511 popped in to help explain what Rami *seemed* to be missing. But he already knew, and was able to laugh it off instantly with the claim - and this is the first claim anyone offered against this evidence itself - the videos show two different sets of people. Now why did he just not say that from the start? Because that would waste less time.

And he quickly offered a formula I called "too-good-for-a-retard" to dismiss our findings in advance, whichever of two options we might take:

Note on the WH examples he cited as an example of bad racist matching: AFAIK there's nothing wrong with those, but I just ignored that to keep on track, which isn't easy with Rami. I took his point that face matches can be and often are wrong, or unfounded, and that might entail latent racism (they all look alike), depending, and it's hard to tell for sure... I just stayed focused on how that's not the case here.

So he acknowledges the story here, after much dawdling, and with suspicious speed and cleverness, he proposes the match means we're racist (if it's a face match-up) or blind (if we match them by clothing). Amin2511 quickly offered 4 clothing-based matches of his own (We agree on all 4 - one included here, below.) So for Rami, the Arab is blind, not racist, by that formula. Also, he's insane and all alone, and should give up.

(note: horizontal stripes, not vertical. But well all see and know what he means - Osama Salim, see below)

Then I got my imagery together to show, for my part, it's a clothing and combination-logic match of all six bodies shown, with some limited support from matching/consistent features (see top link here). I'm cautious about face-matching in general, and this imagery is far below my threshold for all but the most basic things (like mustache presence and basic shape). So by Rami's formula, I'm mostly blind, a bit racist. I'm also of European ancestry, and Rami seems to class me as mostly racist but also blind, besides mentally ill, and a foreigner Putin's troll and/or baby Ayatollah that's misled and talking about a country I know NOTHING about, and he knows EVERYTHING about, from his seat in Canada.

A Mismatch?

Rami (and no one else) makes some random but specific arguments against a victim match. The only decent one worth pausing over is the apparent difference in stripes on the shirt worn by Osama Hassan vs. the man he might be. Rami thinks it's a spacing issue, but to me the spacing looks right, just the dark stripes have fuzzed to almost nothing in the poor view, and the color appears arguably more different than it should considering light differences). That's probably a simple lo-res video-compression and optics issue, but it might be more significant.

So no racist face stereotypes, no language problems, no logic problems, no visual problems really, except some late-arriving nitpicks …

Still, the shirt issues and the lack of any other obviously matching features, with even a mustache match or mismatch unclear, would raise a serious questions about that ID if his was a lone case. I sure as hell wouldn't match those 2 bodies as one based just on their own visuals, nor rule it out. However, he's one of the 4 quite-possible matches in the same group with the Asaad Dakhil and Hassan Ismail doppelgangers, again with both groups being prisoners of someone, one to each side, in the Harasta area on or around 17 August of 2012.

Even if that IS in fact a different man (seems fairly possible), at least those clearest two simply have to be the same men in both videos. There's no reasonable way around that. You don't get to say if one body is coincidence they all are. Rather, if one body is one of those prisoners of the local militants, the presumption is all of them were, even if the rest have no matches in that video of 16. At one match, the conclusion wouldn't be very strong. But here we have 2 that clear and undeniable, and 4 others of varying strength.

Sputtering Towards the Conclusion
But reasonable ways remain optional. For Rami, the problem remains my blinding racism, and then he decided, maybe for "fun" that Amin is also racist, or like a color-blinded reactionary cop anyway, in dismissing this and 3 other offered matches with similar self-amused flippancy.

Can I try thinking as Rami suggests, just for fun?
<stupid>
See, any non-racist would not make a big deal of 2 Arab guys wearing the same shirt. Aren't they allowed to do that? Would I subject them to a regime of only one Coca-Cola shirt per area, on young guys with mustaches and in blue jeans, that got arrested by someone? No, of course - 2 men held captive around Harasta on or near 17 August2012 are allowed to, and quite likely to be arrested in the same common shirt.

And any non-racist SYRIAN could spot the clear differences between these two men. One has a real blurry face, and he's held by rebels, so no way would he get murdered. The other guy has a different, dirtier Coca-Cola shirt, prob. diff. design or colors... he seems shorter, or maybe taller, hard to say, but def. not the same height … and he's got a clearer face, that's also way bloodier than the other guy's. Also he (and /or others) clearly have fatter cheeks than the prisoners do - on one side. And a flat cheek on the other? They're stiff, possibly zombies prior to death. Some seem to have become half-tree, growing dead leaves, probably at the wrong time of year...

Anyway, these inexplicable mutants are clearly different guys, who got murdered, so must have been held by the bad guys. And since each clothing coincidence could be just that, all of the matches combined must be a huge compound coincidence. And as Rami helped me to see, that's so crystal-clear that anyone who refuses to see it like I once did must have some terrible flaw or several that distorts their thinking or makes them lie. If only Amin and I had BOTH spoken Arabic, weren't so racist, could use our eyes, had basic sanity AND human decency, lived in Syria or were both Syrian, and understood who the one and only bad guy side responsible for every crime truly is … we'd think just like Rami claims to think, and be just as retarded as he behaves.
</stupid>

But even though he was on such a roll visually debunking our "weak propaganda," just getting going, really - Rami did not continue, and ran off chasing another way to dance around the whole issue. The Syrian government supposedly never claimed this match, proving it's fake (?), and such a horrible lie even that liar Mr. Assad regime knew he shouldn't try it. Ok. See me answer hours later when I had a minute, then hours later yet, Rami going off on how I never answered. Then a swift discovery of yet another lie in the answer... (and note: times show may seem odd - I work nights, and do most of my online work after that, well into the morning, before I sleep through the day)

He's sure, with at most 11 minutes of research, that I'm proven to be lying yet again, just like at every other turn so far. So predictable for the Putin toll.... I'll re-locate that report if possible when I'm ready. We didn't make up that it had a video version on YouTube at the time. It's possible for example Addounia retracted the story later, following on some phone calls from guys holding more hostages, and a government request...  But probably it's still there, and only the video was removed, or their whole channel (this happens sometime for unclear reasons, with pro-Syrian media channels). I could find out right on his demand to see what new lie Rami switches to next, but I cut the time wasting at that blindness reply, assisted at first by the mute feature.

I finished the visual matching and muted Rami at about the same time. So it's hard to say what caused his mellowing out on my crimes - embarrassment, exhaustion, or just boredom once I stopped feeding the troll (I un-muted him to check, and saw a mellowing). I'll leave it at these combined tweets.

On Social Media and "Anti-Rohingya Hate Speech"

March 17, 2018

Yanghee Lee, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, recently said "Facebook has now turned into a beast" for allowing the promotion of violence and/or hate against Muslims in Myanmar (BBC News). The mass-displacement, burning of villages, and man killings alleged last year against the so-called Rohingya (hereafter Rohingya Mulsims) * A soon-to-be released report contained the details leading the commission to raise pressure on the social media giant to better enforce safety.

Before addressing the grave human rights problems UN people and Facebook are struggling with ... some overlooked context before we take one step forward. There's an optional step back afterwards, but I have to briefly take us here again.
* (they speak a dialect of Bengali they call Rohingya, but there are also Hindus, etc. who speak the same dialect but are not the subject of dispute).
 
The Real Beast in Myanmar
There were many unprovoked massacres of Rohingya civilians alleged, but only one killing of ten men at Inn Din has been proven and admitted and stands as an undeniable violation. These men are claimed as civilians, but the supporting stories contradict each other and they were most likely militants. Other militants, if not the same, had just provoked the local Buddhists by murdering one, then overrunning the area, looting homes as villagers hid in the monastery. Later, after some clashes and the arrest of 10 suspected fighters, some soldiers let the slain farmer's sons strike some blows. The Mullah or religious leader among the captives was beheaded. It was a brutal and illegal act, but a provoked one, and may literally be the only such thing soldiers or Buddhist civilians participated in.  (see here),

Many other alleged killings remain just alleged, lacking not just a government admission but also lacking bodies or other evidence, and often shifting and illogical stories that can hardly all be true. (see some details covered in various posts here and in part 3 of my Indicter series). Several hundred to 1,800 or more civilians were reportedly butchered just the village of Tula Toli on August 30, as supposedly witnessed by some 70+ survivors and witnesses, but with no one filming it, and with clashing details. They even lodged clashing false reports about the real killings at Inn Din. Their Maung Nu massacre happened on two different days, etc. The record is a real mess. A while back I issued a sort of challenge to the media on "fake news" and the Myanmar alleged ethic cleansing. (I mean to do more follow-up, but didn't really expect any response).

Considering truth is hard to know but sometimes discernable upon investigation of the evidence ... there was exactly one proven massacre of clear civilians, and close to 100 of them. And this one that we know happened, this tip of a possible iceberg ... was by Rohingya Islamist militants. Declared infidels, the Hindus were kidnapped from their homes near Kha Maung Seik in the far north, just hours after ARSA attacks overran security forces in the area. Men, women, babies, and elderly alike were marched off and slaughtered with blades and dumped in narrow, deep pits hidden in the brush. 93 of them were either verified as killed or remain missing and presumed dead.

The Muslim militants also spared but kidnapped eight pretty women aged 15-25, whom they converted them by force to Islam and started marrying off to each other. Under this captivity, the women were held briefly at the Kutupalong refugee camp  in Bangladesh, and made to tell false stories under the threat that their children's throats would be slashed if they didn't. But this didn't work very well, and the police were called in soon. The Muslim men in the group fled, and the women, along with 10 children spared along with them, were rescued and eventually sent back to Myanmar. At first chance in the camp and ever since, they've told this story, not the one the Muslims had them say.
That's my reading, stated as fact, like so many others just do. I usually try to avoid it; dealing in likely facts that millions are trained to disagree with, you don't get far just swearing it's true. But here I'll go out on a limb and say that is what happened. For reasons, see my pretty powerful article on this amazing story at the Indicter. The following photo and quote is a good summary, from a detailed report in a government-aligned newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM).

The GNLM report adds that people speaking unknown foreign languages were involved, with one of these co-leading the operation, in which perhaps 500 fighters were involved. They shouted Allahu Akbar and called the massacre their celebration of the feast of Eid al-Adha. Local co-leader "Norulauk" reportedly told the victims before they died the area was now "our territory. … we will murder Buddhists and all of you who worship the statues made of bricks and stones.” But he also made the central error of letting those eight women and ten children to live to eventually report these details of an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Human Rights Watch was watching and had a response on September 27, as half the victims' bodies were found. Their South Asia Director, Meenakshi Ganguly, penned the closest to an HRW statement on this horrific violation, claiming that “no one has been able to independently verify the Burmese government’s most recent allegations,” which amounted to their “playing politics with the dead.” But these women called in their stories from the refugee camp in Bangladesh, telling the authorities where to find the bodies tucked away in three mass graves that seem designed to stay hidden. You don't need independent confirmation of the claim when there's an independent source for it. But HRW had no more to say, being far too busy issuing detailed reports promoting similar claims from the other side.

This isn't the only point but the best introductory one, a rare glimpse allowed by that unusual decision to leave some witnesses alive. In most Islamist false-flag massacres none of the real victims is left alive to tell the truth. Yet the chance for a rare view was happily bypassed by the most "credible" voices. Reading the news, many will have heard of this amazing story either barely or not at all. Isn't that odd? An aborted fake version of the Kha Maung Seik massacre was blamed on Buddhists dressed up to look like ARSA, attacking Muslims and Hindus alike, and was written in on three different days in various sub-versions. That got just as much attention as the true story did, before the whole mess was left unresolved and buried.

Dealing with Sunni extremists, as ARSA and its supporters clearly are, we should expect a lot of deception here, and perhaps no truth underneath it. Myanmar government might literally be telling it like it is, however many voices in the echo chamber here have said otherwise. HRW may never let themselves see it, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming anyway - if there's one "beast" to worry about in Myanmar it's Saudi-style Wahabbi extremist Sunni Islamism.

Every baby is born pure, but some Muslim-born ones go to a Saudi-style school or learn it at home, and wind up joining Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, or the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, depending where they live. These often wind up butchering infidels and framing other infidels for it in lies to yet other infidels - information jihad. They might consider everyone who watches any news or any video screen to be an infidel.

So ... one should proceed with caution, but hardly anyone vested with "credibility" does so.  That may be because - as in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere, they pick the same enemy states the West already wanted to take out, In a team effort, these regimes are toppled or crippled at every chance. The Islamists get away with their part and even get rewarded, sometimes with a new nation like Kosovo (or Arakan?) created to house them. And so they keep doing it, accelerating greatly in recent years. Just in the last decade millions have died often horrible deaths from this, and others live under inhumane captivity by or control of these poisonous people. If someone could claim control of or steer it, this global network of Sunni extremism would definitely be a "weapon of mass destruction" in itself.

There's no hint the UN's human rights people, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, etc. are on the lookout for this, even ignoring glaring inconsistencies in the stories they lodge, as they maintain a posture of firm belief. That's a serious problem.

And the Islamists with their medieval view use social media to spread their hate, considering it a religious duty. Lee said "I'm afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended." Having seen some of the false-flag Islamist massacres successfully promoted there to demonize their enemies (notably Alawites in Syria), with or without shocking gory images of the Islamists' own work ... she's right but backwards. Islamism is the beast, and  social media is its pet.

Social Media's Role in the Conflict
This one proven massacre of 93 Hindu civilians at Kha Maung Seik was not planned by Buddhists on Facebook. It was planned by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and allied terrorists, in various and mostly unknown ways.

ARSA's supreme leader "AtaUllah" sent orders on August 24, using WhatsApp, to prepare for attacks on security forces. An August 28 order to burn down Buddhist villages was also transmitted this way. (see International Crisis Group's December report). More secret orders like those to carry out massacres of infidels would probably be done by runners or perhaps coded communications, and not publicly on any social network. The Aug. 28 message sounds like the kind of thing they would mainly communicate this way.

WhatsApp at least should be taken to task for letting militants use their service to order illegal attacks on security forces, and incitements to burn villages. I'm not sure if they have been called out for this, or closed the terrorist leader's account or anything... worth checking into. I gather WhatsApp is more hands-off in their approach than the more discussed sites like Facebook.
But these don't seem to come up as an issue in the news articles, as if Rohingya Muslims - as the persecuted ones here - could never have nefarious purposes to use social media. I mean, isn't the only issue here those genocidal Buddhist? So what to do about them?

IF the UN investigators have Facebook messages of Buddhists or others coordinating mob violence attacks on Rohingya muslim civilians, or openly inciting such attacks or issuing threats - that would be evidence of a problem and would justify counter-action. That's direct criminal activity, like ARSA's WhatsApp messages of August 24 and 28 at least. But nothing of the sort from the other side is mentioned so far.

The Washington Post's Annie Gowen heard from non-Muslim refugees in Sittwe in November, who "said they were afraid to return home because they feared the Rohingya insurgents whose attacks on police posts in their villages precipitated the crisis." One was an older Hindu woman whos entire family was butchered. Another was a Buddhist college student who "recalled that one of his best school friends, a Rohingya, stopped speaking to him after the 2012 violence and later left the country. About three months ago, the former friend messaged him ominously on Facebook, “We are going to kill you.” 

This sort of message would be well outside their rules, and may have been punished. (that's around mid-August, maybe before the August 25 ARSA offensive, so not backlash over the following ethnic cleansing allegations. It might be from an insider planning the violence.) It's quite possible there are similar messages, private and public, from the Buddhist side. Make no mistake, Buddhists are humans. The monks might tend to be above the fray, but certain "ultra-nationalist" ones like the infamous Wirathu have taken pretty ugly stances, which by the way are not supported universally among Buddhists. Regular folks caught up in disputes and violence can get ugly, whatever the religion.  The Inn Din massacre shows they can be physically violent, and it would be no surprise if even more would express it just in dangerous words.

But unless someone can show otherwise, some person's opinion has no relevance to someone else's alleged actions.

Or is it Thoughtcrime They're After?
But it's not clear this sort of direct threat or public hazard is what the UN investigators speak of. It could be they're taking "hate speech" more widely as ideas and speech that contribute to feelings against - specifically - Rohingya Muslims. It would seem fair enough to many, considering the alleged genocide they're going through, a special "never again" speech emergency. Such ideas  do complicate the public perception of the moment's championed victims. It would class as thoughtcrime in the totalitarian future of George Orwell's 1984.

There are troubling signs that the UN commission's thinking here is based on such political motivates.  The BBC News report cites Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee as saying "We know that the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities." Actually inciting violence would be an issue, but "inciting hatred" ...
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43385677

That phrase just doesn't sound grammatically correct to me, and sounds politicized and vaguely newspeak. One incites violence, or maybe a panic, or the burning of Buddhist villages (from latin to excite, or stir-up usually, something active). Hatred can incite violence, but might need anger added as a spark. Hate is a longer-term state-of-mind thing, not an episode. I think of it as growing, being taught or learned, etc. Nonetheless, "inciting hatred" is a perceived problem people are tackling lately, as if it's a disease you can get from a single glance, or a fire you'll burst into instantly. (see below). It's a semantical issue. Let's jot get hung up on it.

The UN mission's chairman, Marzuki Darusma is cited by the BBC as explaining "that social media had "substantively contributed to the level of acrimony" amongst the wider public, against Rohingya Muslims." He added "hate speech is certainly, of course, a part of that," but some of it was other kinds of speech that also contribute to acrimony, or ill-will against some people and not others. For some reason this is worth a report and a news conference.

And they don't seem to care that it cut both ways. By the accepted reports 1,800 Muslim civilians were butchered at Tula Toli on August 30. With no provocation whatsoever, soldiers and Buddhist mobs surrounded the villagers on the beach, massacred the men, burned babies alive, raped women after killing their children in front of them, etc. Even Buddhist monks took part in it, as claimed. It's still supported by almost zero reliable evidence, but widely accepted as fact at places like the UN. But it would show some very serious hate from some very non-peaceful people.

True or not, might this kind of claim getting repeated all over not lead to bad feelings - and even unjust and poorly-aimed violence - against Buddhists, these satanic butchers claiming a religion of peace?

I didn't find many examples of actual violence against Buddhists outside of the battle zone itself, but I didn't have time to dig far. In Bangladesh, Mizzima.com reported in mid-September, "there have been some minor incidents targeting the Buddhist community" and authorities were stepping up security around their temples, fearing violence by radical Muslims in "revenge" for events in Myanmar. It was a real concern, and the information riling them up came largely by social media. It's been worse in the past; violent attacks by Muslims in Malaysa killed several Burmese Buddhist guest workers in 2013-14 over similar but much tamer allegations at the time, leading the rest to quit work and go back home in fear. (Heizman)

This year it seems oddly restrained and the issue is not so much violent but other possibly unfair backlash; protest, sanctions tarnished image for Myanmar's Buddhist community, and susceptibility to believing more of the same kind of accusations next time around. There's now more yet acrimony against Buddhists from Muslims and from the broader public. It's based on things they've heard and keep hearing, repeated with no skepticism on social media, in the mainstream news, and even by world leaders and UN officials.

These stories must be told in order to even be considered. But from there they should be considered - critically - which they aren't. And true or not, logical or physically possible or not, they most definitely add to vengeful attitudes against Buddhists. They even - dare I say it? - "incite hatred" against them. (having dared to say it, it still sounds stupid. This is clearly teaching hatred (or at least ... disdain, disrespect) by repetition, not inciting it like one would a fistfight).

But the UN mission doesn't seem worried about that trend even as they add to the list of villainy: the Burmese Buddhists try to deny their crimes and spread their hate to the wider world using the Internet. Is it really even-handed universal justice these activists are after?

Otherwise, this could be a political exercise operating under a thin pretense. If so, the consideration at heart would probably be just this: all this talk - especially the true and/or convincing talk - is complicating  their desired picture. It portrays deceptive jihadist mass-murderers where the Western-led "world community" shows more persecuted innocents in need of salvation. All these carefully lodged and accepted ethnic cleansing claims need a clear bad guy, and it has to be the government targeted for sanctions or worse in another regime-change type of campaign.*

* ("crazy thoughts" side-note: This is apparently how the "world community" closes down competitors and eventually absorbs more member states, so as to more resemble the actual entire world, all finally working on one agreed script. This is supposed to ensure peace at last, but war is too profitable and would continue, against member states accused of increasingly petty violations of their membership agreements, etc. So I advise nations and people - don't give in to this possible future. Unipolar power achieved by force and deception is not the way to go.)

How The UN Folks Identified the Problem with Social Media
The UN investigators cite some evidence to explain the problem with hate speech in Myanmar. Just what all that is remains unclear until the report comes out, but the BBC repost says "The interim report is based on more than 600 interviews with human rights abuse victims and witnesses" and other things like "satellite imagery, photographs and video footage taken within Myanmar."

So they again found that a bunch of places really were burned, saw the same weak video evidence and heard strong verbal claims already repeated so widely. They found that "some were burned alive in their homes" etc. etc.  They will hear about the Tula Toli rape huts with, and the carted-away bodies from Maung Nu everyone saw but no one filmed, etc.. They will take the chance to remind us once again of all that and how they totally believe the stories behind it, and totally blame the government and the local Buddhists for a campaign of unprovoked ethnic cleansing against innocent Muslims. Reasonably, in that light, they'll demand accountability. Again, according to my analysis, it's all likely bogus.

And now they can add that the people they blame - Burmese Buddhists, in general - use Facebook to express their dislike of the target group. Surely they can cite some posts including racial slurs, some expressed views in favor of locking the "Bangalis" out, or even a few personal opinions that the "kalar" should all be killed, or even a few direct death threats.

The investigators will probably not be able to show a link from those posts or people to any of the alleged violence and torching of villages last year. It's probably a bunch of lumping-together and blaming the whole community for a spirit thought to underpin all that. And it's partly a show of trying to help the Buddhists become less genocidal, a humanistic but condescending gesture - in lieu of harder options they're also pursuing.

With probably zero relevant connections discovered, Lee and Darusma and the rest the would have us believe somewhere in there is a serious problem contributing to real ethnic cleansing, and Facebook especially needs to solve it by silencing more content than it already is. Well I'm surely not convinced. It seems more like they're acting instead on the political course described above. If so, one can only hope Facebook refuses to play along and sticks to a spirit of fairness and truth.

What Facebook is Doing and What We Could Do
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other social media sites and platforms are private property, allowed to run as the owners see fit. But they've also become so prevalent that they seem like public spaces. All the social media sites agree in embracing the same basic values you'd hope to find there - free speech, public safety, other things in various order. But it's a little ambiguous what to expect or try and demand from them in this regard.

The BBC report notes the chairman of the UN mission, Marzuki Darusma saying "As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook and Facebook is social media." So in some minds, they're tackling the issue across social media. The report continues:

Facebook has said there is "no place for hate speech" on its platform.

"We take this incredibly seriously and have worked with experts in Myanmar for several years to develop safety resources and counter-speech campaigns," a Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC.

"This work includes a dedicated Safety Page for Myanmar, a locally illustrated version of our Community Standards, and regular training sessions for civil society and local community groups across the country.

"Of course, there is always more we can do and we will continue to work with local experts to help keep our community safe."

"Safety" sounds good, but "counter-speech campaigns" ...

Sounds aside, this may be an example: "Last July, (Facebook) gave the example of policing use of the word "kalar", which it said could be used both innocuously and as a slur against Muslims." They had some problems sorting out which was which, but think they have it right now and only remove the slur instances. I guess because it refers to the darker skin color of Rohingya Mulsims "kalar" is seen as akin to "nigger" over here. I don't know ...

One hopes they aren't blocking use of Bengali, another preferred term for people who reject the term Rohingya, which was invented to lay claim to the land (from Rakhine, aka Rohan).  I'm using that for shorthand but ...  Are we forcing people to use the name the Bengali Muslims insist on being called and grant them a victory in their campaign? That sounds political.

The mentioned "inciting hatred" - not even violence - was the cause for Facebook just now banning the right-wing Britain First party, now disbanded in the UK. Its leaders were already kicked of Twitter and in physical jail (not "FB jail") for harassment. Specifically, they had agitated against Muslims too, so they're bound to have made some good points then, but maybe not in the right way, etc. (NBC News) Facebook's official statement on this is worth considering as a precedent:

"We are an open platform for all ideas, and political speech goes to the heart of free expression," said Facebook in a statement. "But political views can and should be expressed without hate. People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to denigrate others on the basis of who they are."

This is the spirt of the policy (spelled out in more detail somewhere) that you should be able to follow and still speak your mind. It sounds reasonable enough...

They'll have rules. We can't demand anything, but would be reasonable to insist the rules allow fair self-expression. This should be the case, unless Facebook or the others have ulterior motives hiding under their public words. And it should not be like targeted sanctions against the "racist bad guy" social media users in this special and likely fake crisis. It should be applied evenly to both sides. Sometimes at least it is. I've seen haters against the Buddhists peddling false evidence and spouting blood libel get their posts removed and entire accounts banned (on Twitter at least). But broadly so far, everyone  can still speak their mind, within limits on a private platform, etc.

For those users worried about their voices being silenced in this effort ... it might be, depending, through no fault of your own. But it becomes more likely if you go against the spirit-grain they're hoping to achieve. So here's some advice that should allow you to carry on within the spirit of Facebook's policy and probably just about everywhere else. (This is my own version, which I follow and find works so far to keep me out of most trouble.

* Basically, think of yourself as a global citizen with some responsibility for the content of the global discussion. Even if you're there casually or drunk or whatever ... if possible, be professional. Which, in context, means things like these:
* If you're trying to educate people about what you think are the facts, take care about those supposed facts. Try to be skeptical even if you like what it says. Verify when possible, check for alternate views. If you want your word to be kind of like news, try to keep it from being fake.
* Try to maintain a humanist attitude even as you deal with issues of serious inhumanity.
* Avoid speaking from hate like you would (I hope) avoid spanking a child in anger.
* Speak from anger only with great care.
* Try to attack the problems with the people and not the people, even if all they seem to have is problems (what they do, not who they are...)
* Be careful about who among the Muslims you're talking about - the babies at least, and even many of the men have no blood on their hands - avoid sloppy thinking and conflation. (see further notes below) *
* Don't threaten to kill people or things like that

But for those trying to deal with this ... As I've suggested, emphasize how very many Muslims in Rakhine state did NOT take part in the crisis last year, did not burn their villages, run off and spout false stories, and have not participated in murders and other violence. Some were killed for this moderation by the other Muslims who insist on violent crisis and an Arakan solution. These loyal Muslims at the very least deserve better than being lumped together with terrorists in a kind of "Muslims are evil" attitude.

Getting philosophical here... underneath it all, even the ARSA terrorists killing their neighbors  are as "not really good or bad" as everyone. If they must be killed or violently stopped - and that is frequently the case - so be it. But this is sad. They were all born blameless babies at one point.
I've always maintained such an attitude and so far I've never been kicked out of anywhere. (I also haven't quite reached a threat profile where you're more likely to be info-assassinated).

* (further notes on "who among them") That last is a tricky issue, especially sharp here - in how militant poisoned Muslims tend to pop out of partly innocent communities. The other side could stand to understand this, but hardly anyone outside of Myanmar is telling them, so they largely just don't realize.  In Myanmar as elsewhere, they hide among the community. Much of the community conceals them willingly. Others ... don't dare defy that trend. The nasty ones, with the actions no one could blame your for hating - they keep coming out and killing others, infidels, year after year. Their education tells them this is okay and encouraged. All they needs is a few guns, a couple of crude IEDs, and some swords and sticks to overrun a village or a security post or both. Then they melt back in and claim repression, causing problems for the government.

This will be tricky stuff for anyone to know and sort out who's who and decide how to deal with it. Simply tolerating it as the cost of a multicultural society imposed on them by ling-term squatters who claim the land as their own. There will be a strong and natural tendency to want that whole community gone to somewhere Muslim or Bengali. Some will be happy at seeing them flee and hoping they stay gone, and wish the government HAD really chased them away as alleged. Few people in the world can understand the kind of frustration they're dealing with.

BBC and the rest ask why do Buddhists hate Muslims over there? They answer: because they have a different religion  and the Buddhists think they don't belong. Uh, no ... they hate them collectively because the Muslim Bengali communities are so riddled with total assholes no one should have to deal with, and they're tired of just being scared of them. That thinking isn't the most laudable, but it's understandable. Following on that, many people want the Rohingya Muslims gone, mostly because they hate and fear them, and also... because they don't belong in the first place (or so runs their thinking). It's clearly the more important part of that picture that's generally left out or de-emphasized.

A Challenge to the Media on Myanmar "Fake News"

Adam Larson (aka Caustic Logic)
January 6, 2018
edits Jan. 7, 9, 12

I'll start with what inspired this post: a "news" story in The Record, December 8: Fake news on Facebook fans the flames of hate against the Rohingya in Myanmar, by Annie Gowen. "For Buddhists in Myanmar, even a quick scroll through Facebook's news feed provides fuel for hatred and nationalistic fervor," writes Gowen.

Firstly, these stories and view may not be fake. As Gowen summarizes:

"According to the posts, international news and human rights organizations are falsely accusing the military of carrying out atrocities against the Rohingya to help terrorists infiltrate the country, kill Buddhists and carve out a separatist Islamic province."

From the bit I've seen, this puts their views pretty well. It's alleged Zatw Htay used doctored photos regarding the burning of villages. That could be. I haven't seen these, but I guess it's not the picture shown below?

<add 1/7>The Star reports on this, I had seen it in passing. The photo is dubious on the face of it but hard to read. I may try harder at some point. And as it happens, the woman in the photo was just seen among witnesses giving this story, looking just as distinct and in the same clothes, minus the head towel. That's definitely weird, fake news, and overly fake in fact. It casts doubt on the story told there, but doubt is just that.

So both sides have used false images in this battle of ideas. Rule of thumb: any purported photo is suspect. The fires are set mainly at night, etc. Who's behind it will come down to other, less conclusive evidence, and to the other clues setting the overall context; if the army really is storming and massacring villages, they're probably the ones torching as well. If ARSA-types are faking stuff and committing their own crimes, they're the likely culprits. I think we can all agree on that.<end 1/7>

Otherwise these views could be untrue, intentionally or not. And like anyone, these people can also tell the truth, in whole or in part. From what I see, with some research and a lot of prior work on similar situations, that quote is a pretty good summary of the reality of events. Sound crazy? Here's my overview of what's known vs. what's possible, or just see the three examples that constitute the essence of this challenge (see below). 

Next, it's not usually "news" spreading this interpretation of events. It's mainly in the form of social media comments by persons, if often citing government and pro-government media sources. These reports get scant attention in the outside world, so maybe their being shared is a favor that can help bring balance. 

Gowen, on the other hand, directly writes what's called news, at the Washington Post and wherever else. Along with many others calling the other side liars, the information they push had better not be fake, or this Gowen piece would be like the clock being called black, by the kettle.

Here, regarding Myanmar's atrocities against the Rohingya, the news I've seen is based on two things:

- The reality of a lot of refugees and a lot of burned places. There are two competing stories for this, each with a certain logic and some evidence. But in the "news," one story is just laughed off the table to start with, as the other raised in its stead as the evident fact.

- The basis of the above-described sorting of claims: accepting without question the stories from those rushing the border in a potentially fake crisis. They describe arguably ridiculous barbarity against innocent Muslims, of a kind Islamists engaged in a conflict will report anywhere, a kind we should have developed some skepticism about long ago.

This plus using the right form and words, including some small facts and some prior claims wrapped around the current claims, so they appear like evident truth, stated more than fairly - this is what forms what Gowen would call regular, non-fake news. And it's bite-sized, not too complex, like my rambling crap. 

Three Massacre News Stories and the Challenge

With just some research, I can already spot at least three areas where this breaks down and the news is exposed as fake. Or, rather.... it's wrong somehow. The vast majority of such claims can't re verified or proven wrong like this - they're just a huge pile of uncertainty. The fact that I can pin down this many weak spot so easily suggests to me there's a serious problem with the truth content of the accepted stories.

The challenge is three-part. After each case is explained briefly (relatively), the question is posed which of those accepted but conflicting stories is "fake news or, rather ...(whatever we could also call it)." I'll be trying to get answers on Twitter or wherever, mainly from Annie Gowen to start. Links forthcoming... 

1) Kha Maung Seik Massacre Story Change 

Did you know some witnesses regarding these massacres have changed their stories? One of the earliest mass-killings to be reported was at Kha Maung Seik or Fawira/Foira/Fakira Bazar and/or Ye Baw Kya village (same area, unclear). It was just minutes into the current conflict that started with ARSA raids on security posts, early on August 25. Look it up - there are two drastically different yet eerily similar stories of this event (two sample links for each below), citing the same witnesses but at different times, in different contexts. Both stories appear in stories most would call news and consider true. But they can't both be true.

One story was told first, in the Muslim camp at Kutapalong, Bangladesh, at least by September 4 (photos date with a story run September 6, from Reuters reporter Simon Lewis:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-village/rohingya-say-their-village-is-lost-to-myanmars-spiraling-conflict-idUSKCN1BI0GI

http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/news/world/rohingya-village-lost-myanmar-spiraling-conflict-article-1.3476737

Some 20 survivors, both Muslim and Hindu, swore army soldiers and Buddhist locals teamed up to kill Muslims and Hindus alike. But for the survivors, it just brought them closer together. Eight attractive young Hindu women/girls (as least as young as 15, but married w/kids per local norms, and at least as old as 28), and their few kids - that's all that lived from the Hindu side, as luck would have it. Did the regime and Buddhist killers spare them for some reason? Well, they had since converted to Islam, and fled with some Muslims who also survived (it seems more on that side did, and tending to be male and single enough). They all lived together in the Muslim camp. 

These same eight women were shown, singly and in different combinations, in several videos and pimped to different reporters, always telling the same basic story, but with varying degrees of clarity on who the black-masked killers really were (presumed government/Buddhist but sometimes less sure), and sometimes mentioning the strange religion-switch that accompanied their unusual survival. (Reka Dhar said she doesn't know who hacked her husband to death, but some nice Muslims agreed to help her and others escape "because we promised them we would convert to their religion.") They don't mention getting re-married since their husbands were killed, allegedly because they refused to help the Buddhists to kill the Muslims. “They asked my husband to join them to kill Rohingya but he refused, so they killed him,” said Anika Bala, 15. Six months pregnant, she said Muslims helped her get to Bangladesh." (see here for reports)

Anyway, after people recognized these young ladies saying strange and horrible things on TV,  they had calls placed (not the story, a guess - people in the camp noticed a problem) and the women and their kids (all of them) were separated from the Muslims and transferred to a Hindu camp. Here they first gave public accounts of the other story, by at least September 16, when this video (still at right) was published: black-clad ARSA Islamists shouting Allahu Akbar overran the nearest army post, then headed straight to their unprotected homes. These men massacred the girls' families, cutting their throats and dumping them  in pits, calling it their way of celebrating the feast of Eid.* Only these prettiest 8 were spared as too valuable to just kill, but their husbands were slaughtered as they were made to watch. The girls were forced to convert to Islam. Some were then "married" to some of militants, and presumably raped repeatedly under that pretext. But it was a way to survive, and the deal saved the lives of 8 or 10 of their children (one at least is a baby brother of a girl who was just newlywed, not a mother yet). (no, he's missing, likely dead)

* Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice, marks the end of the Hajj season. It was marked by most Muslims on Sept. 1 or 2 last year. This is August 25, a bit early. But I read that Saudi Arabia started an extended Eid celebration on August 24. And who pays ARSA's bills? (added 1/12)

This story they told, both in the Hindu camp and back in Myanmar. So maybe under duress by the regime? (this guy thinks so, and got it run on the Guardian. Add 1/12: Human Rights Watch also doesn't like their story - without mentioning these girls, they call this a government accusation, complaining "no one has been able to independently verify the Burmese government’s most recent allegations" with bodies "allegedly" found). That pressure to lie can also exist in the Hindu camp, apparently, and no kind of pressure to lie can exist in a Muslim camp, with people who wind up married to/living with the 8 pretty converted widows who by luck survived?

<add 1/9>Here's a detailed account of their ordeal, as told upon returning to Myanmar in October. Consider this:

The Hindus were kept together with Muslims at the Kutuparlaung refugee camp and forced to wear burqas, the traditional dress of Muslim women. At about 1pm, foreign media (speaking in English) conducted interviews. The Hindus were told to tell the media that men and their families were killed by the army and ethnics. They had to flee fearing that they would be killed by the army troops. They were threatened that their children’s throats would be slashed unless they said as they were told.

<end 1/9>

Foreign media was brought in to hear their story from locals at Kha Maung Seik, and see some of the 45 decaying bodies that had been found based on tips from the women. This degree of closure was only achieved on September 25, with another 50 or so anticipated bodies still not located at the time. There hasn't been a public update since. 

Two of several resultant news stories, from AFP: http://indianexpress.com/article/world/rohingya-crisis-hindus-recount-massacre-in-myanmar-as-mass-graves-unearthed-in-rakhine-state-4863922/
Another from Reuters, noting they had earlier run a conflicting story:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/myanmar-finds-more-bodies-in-mass-grave-u-n-seeks-rapid-aid-increase-idUSKCN1C01GT

Challenge: which story was "fake news?" Or rather ... which story is a lie, obscuring the truth of an actual massacre? You want to call those alleged massacre survivors liars? Okay, they must be in one version. But it seems no one wants to make a clear call here. HRW and Amnesty have been handed these reports, and probably some strenuous denials and counter-claims, and are still waiting until that gets clearer, and might wait forever to decide what happened at Kha Maung Seik and make any kind of noise about it.

2) Maung Nu Massacre Date Change

Annie Gowen herself reported on a massacre in Maung Nu village that's become central since then. Back in mid-September, it was front page news, and the first English-language news story I've found to mention the event. Quite a scoop. 

"Fortify Rights, a Southeast Asia-focused human rights organization, estimates the death toll in Maung Nu and three nearby villages to be 150," Gowen writes. But how and when isn't very clear.  The story relates several days of "horror" in Maung Nu, starting with the worst, it seems, on August 25, with a massacre by the army, killing enough that "blood flowed in the streets." But many survivors were left, only threatened that they must leave soon. One guy was shot through the hip but lived and hid in the forest. On day 2, bodies were seen being hauled away on a boat. On day three (August 27), the wounded guy's mother joined him in the woods. On days 4 and 5 the rest of the villagers grew more worried until on day 6 everyone decided to leave, before there could be another massacre.

This is no fluke in reporting or a single confused account; it's presented as the distillation of several people spoken to: "Nearly a dozen villagers from the Maung Nu hamlet who escaped recounted their last hours in their homes and the long journey that followed."

Well that's great, but Human Rights Watch and all other news reports, based on dozens of stories say it was only two days later on August 27 that the main massacre there happened. As they describe it, it's a pretty singular event one would be unlikely to forget.

HRW report, October 3, citing 14 witnesses agreeing on the August 27 massacre:  https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/03/burma-military-massacres-dozens-rohingya-village

AP report, Dec. 21, citing 37 witnesses agreeing on it:  https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/shattered-skulls-and-blood-rohingya-report-myanmar-massacre-171992/

From these, I have 14 shady witnesses here, needing still to work in Gowen's. Comparing now, she gives 6 names. All are new to that list. Boat captain Mohamed Zubair is the one I remember seeing, cited by HRW as a peripheral witness to the pre-massacre boat thing, so I didn't include him. 5 others were retired before the final version came out? My list will grow by six. (note, soon after: the list is updated now, 20 witnesses, 15 cited for a massacre on the 27th, six against (with the boat captain alone appearing in both sets, with the same story but taking on a different context in each version.)

Killer officer "Bajo" here is "Baju" in later sources, like HRW. That's the same name and guy, skinny and tall, but a different story. HRW also says he managed bodies "after the fighting ceased," which was early on the 25th). Some say homes were burnt and people were shot while fleeing at this time, but it's not clear if any civilians were massacred then. The victims were all "young men," perhaps killed in the clashes. Like Gowen, HRW heard the corpses were taken away with a boat Baju had to requisition from a talkative Rohingya, Mr. Zubair. 

But this is all a prelude to the massacre of August 27. HRW heard Baju also led this, herding over 100 people (87 men in one story, plus their women and children) into two houses and butchering them methodically, with just a few dozen survivors. No one in Gowen's pool of interviewees mentioned this.  Her whole story compressed: 

Challenge: there's little need to ask here - it's probably Gowen's early version that's fake. Or rather, if either is fake, both probably are. Isn't at least this version fake? What else can explain such a drastic omission? Considering the above and below cases, it seems to me like a moment of plan B tripping over plan A.

Important side-note: in Maung Nu, we hear a very similar death toll - around 90-100 in most versions - to the number of Hindus killed in Kha Maung Seik. We also hear that the bodies were strangely removed, trucked somewhere else... I suspect they PLAN to say they were taken to Kha Maung Seik, buried there and passed off as Hindus, and they'll suggest all claims otherwise, including from those 8 Hindu women, are "fake news." See here. They would also have to toss their August 25 government massacre of Hindus story under the bus as more "fake news," but that story seems pretty dead anyway. 

If this is the case, anyone helping promote the refugee camp story of the Maung Nu massacre would be helping launder a genuine and brutal massacre.  For what it's worth. 

3) Tula Toli Massacre: Problems with the Prelude 

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are not exactly news, but sort of, and supposedly quite a bit better. They report on the massive Tula Toli massacre of August 30, where witnesses say about 1,000 or more civilians were butchered in a cruel and strange system before the village was torched. This is the biggest massacre reported by far, their flagship story. I have some general problems with the evidence in this case, collected here.

Both groups also heard of a preceding massacre and burning in the village across the river on August 28, from which Rohingya fled to Tula Toli, swimming southeast, some only to be killed there later. Those who lived through the Tula Toli massacre - a "handful" of 18 or 20, or around 75 who've spoken to the media - mainly say they did so by swimming back across to this other village. At least two alleged witnesses survived both massacres by making that swim both ways. 

So why do HRW and Amnesty disagree on the name of the village hit first? They agree, as witnesses told them, it was a Rohingya town, or it was their part that was burned. But AI heard it was called "Wet Kyein," while HRW heard it was "Dual Toli." 

That might matter greatly. HRW heard Wet Kyein was a Rakhine village, maybe because it was (if just partly). But they heard it was in a different area where houses were not burned (Rakhine/Buddhists spared.) So why was AI wrong? The government in Myanmar agrees with them, as does a UN map and a US Army map I found - that Wet Kyein is across the river on the east bank. But like HRW, the government says Rakhines of the Mro sub-group lived there, or at least in the area of town where at least 30 homes were burned by ARSA militants, mid-day on August 28.

See: http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/12/tula-toli-massacre-where-is-wet-kyein.html

In the January 6 update there, see how I found some evidence some Rohingya Muslims also lived in Wet Kyein, including one who was "a former ward administrator in Badakar village" nearby "and had been working with local authorities on regional development activities." He was beheaded, apparently by Islamist insurgents for working with the government, in December 2016. So Rohingya lived there, despite what HRW heard, and were reportedly killing each other.

But I'm inclined to believe there were Rakhine homes too, as the government and HRW say, in a mixed village scenario that seems fairly common. The fast-breeding Rohingya might function like the cranberry juice is all the mixed fruit juices you'll see at the store (It gets mixed in with everything!). The proportions of each ethnic group, their relations, etc. aren't clear at the moment, but here we see the ARSA promoters deceptively shifting that name off the burned-down area.  That suggests it's they who have something to hide here, not the alleged Army-Buddhist killers with their rape huts and burn pits. And from the risky hassles they've taken to confuse and fuse it into the Tula Toli story, the Wet Kyein massacre (??) might be a fairly big deal they're worried about.

I suspect an ARSA gang raided the Buddhist area, killed and maybe kidnapped some infidels, and then laundered that in two different ways, shifting mid-stream: to AI in October, they used the village's real name but described it as Rohingya and attacked by the army. To HRW in December, they carefully moved that name, and re-named the burned village. That could be wrong, and even proven wrong, perhaps. But considering this strange confusion, and my years of prior research, it's a pretty good hypothesis. It deserves to be addressed and debunked carefully, or accepted if it's borne out. Instead, I predict it will be ignored.

Challenge: can anyone show that HRW had it right, that this is some honest confusion, or find where all the Rakhine homes really were and then show they're un-burnt as claimed?

On Stories that Spread Hate

If these massacres like Tula Toli, Maung Nu, and the first version of Kha Maung Seik are fake - or if they're true, either way - these stories are dangerous. If true, they need told, but when atrocities against Muslims are reported in Islamist media channels, on Facebbook and elsewhere, they don't even need to call for violence themselves. The people who matter know what this means and what should be done. Blood is required. 

Such claims, supported grisly images and shocking details, elicit emotion and circumvent critical thinking among jihad-minded people around the world. They scrape up what they can, money for guns, a few friends, whatever to support the struggle in wherever. With the "news" stories of Setember to December, that includes Myanmar or "Arakan" bigger than ever. The freed Hindu women from Kha Maung Seik say some of the black-clad men who commiited the massacre were groups of foreigners, speaking languages they've never heard. How they would get there isn't clear, but there are ways. Was that true? Are more on their way? 

Any foreigners fighting in Myanmar would be attracted there, as everywhere, by reports and claims of atrocities against their fellow Sunni Muslims. Or maybe it's the money, the prospect of pretty new "wives," or whatever, but they cite the brutally slain kids and women of massacre like Tula Toli, Maung Nu, and Kha Maung Seik, as with Houla in Syria and so many others before. They can link to news stories like these as proof, and even as a sort of tacit encouragement from the establishment they know runs the media.

But as I've noticed for some time, those "news" stories are pretty much written by Islamist activists playing witnesses (or playing with them in some cases). They're just handed in and copied into a "news" story designed to make the claims sound plausible and supported by clear precedents - similar stories accepted already, etc. That's stenography, circular reasoning, and some twists of deception. Some of it might be true on accident, or where the sources happen to not be lying, but at its heart that's fake news. It's not guaranteed to be false, but it's extremely vulnerable to that.

In these stories -  that become quite stupid once you look at them closer - Myanmar's army and militant Buddhist monks and villagers next door are blamed. As the latest agents of Satan holding back the Muslims people from reaching their destiny and trying to crush them out of existence, the alleged killers or those who worked with them can now be killed with just the same cruelty or greater. Also, collaborators within the Muslim community are considered enemies and killed when the chance arises (see Dec. 2016 as cited above, and Dec. 2017).  There are fatwas saying so and that's all that matters to these guys.

And if the infidels are killed, they can and might be claimed as innocent Muslims killed by Buddhists, repeating the cycle, hopefully, until they finally get their purified "Arakan Islamic State," with or without the help of a Libya-style "No Fly Zone."

Annie Gowen's reporting will be part of what feeds into this. I encourage her, and anyone else seeing this, to now reflect. Are we OK with our current level of responsibility in reporting? Is there no unjustified blood on our hands now or in  the future?

Challenges Met?
I'm not expecting much, but ...
- Alerting Annie Gowen on Twitter re: Q2
- to HRW and AI also on Twitter re: Q3
- to Simon Lewis, Reuters re: Q1

There are more challenges I'll gather here, and encourage some polite but straightforward and non-trollish encouragement - so far, none of these people seems to notice my questions or feel like responding.