In Indonesia, fake UN accounts spewing anti-refugee hate feed rejection of Rohingya

Much of the resistance to Rohingya refugees stems from online misinformation, human rights activists say, as well as organised attacks against the UN

More than 1,500 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in Indonesia’s Aceh province since mid-November. Officials say they’ve been ‘overwhelmed’ by the influx

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Rohingya refugees disembark from a boat upon landing in Indonesia’s Aceh province in November. More than 1,500 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in the province in recent weeks. Photo: AP

Published: 7:00pm, 22 Dec 2023

Misinformation campaigns boosted by fake UN accounts are helping stoke Indonesians’ resentment towards Rohingya refugees arriving on their shores, with officials and activists warning that more needs to be done to combat online hoaxes and protect the persecuted group.

“We are very much concerned that real people fell for these fake accounts, as well as the disinformation that is being orchestrated from real accounts,” Miklos Gaspar, director at the United Nations Information Centre in Jakarta, told This Week in Asia.

“The objective [of the organised hate campaigns] appears to be to make it more difficult for the local authorities and the United Nations Human Rights Council to cooperate on finding temporary shelters and providing human interior assistance [to the refugees].”

Residents of Sabang in Indonesia’s Aceh province protest on Monday against the arrival of Rohingya refugees and the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. Photo: AFP

More than 1,500 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in Indonesia’s Aceh province via perilous sea voyages since mid-November, including the latest group of 50 who arrived on December 14. While Aceh, Indonesia’s northernmost province and the only one with a sharia-based legal system, has generally tolerated Rohingya refugees in the past, a rising number of locals are now resisting attempts by the government to shelter them.

On Monday, more than 200 people protested against the settlement of Rohingya in Sabang, Aceh. The refugees, who initially fled Myanmar following genocidal attacks by the country’s security forces from 2017 onwards, have largely been based in crowded and unsafe refugee camps of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar ever since.

“Our demand is to reject them all. They must leave. Because Sabang people are also having a hard time, they cannot accommodate any more people,” one protester, Samsul Bahri, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The protesting Acehnese also claimed that Rohingya have been behaving badly and not following local rules. On December 9, a Rohingya man was assaulted over an allegation that he had sexually harassed a woman at a shelter. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said this was a misunderstanding.

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