The Myanmar government said yesterday that photos showing alleged rights violations in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw Township are fake, RFA reported on 28 October.
Muslim Rohingya groups have asserted that security forces deployed in Maungdaw have committed rape and other forms of violence under the cover of an antiterrorism campaign following an attack earlier this month on border police outposts.
Government spokesman Zaw Htay, who is also deputy director-general of the President’s Office, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that people in other countries sent old photos and videos to the U.N., rights groups and international news organizations of communal violence that took place four years ago between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, trying to pass the images off as current.