Aung San Suu Kyi Represents Myanmar Against Rohingya Genocide Case at UN Criminal Court

▶️ Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is seated at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague which has opened a hearing into accusations of genocide brought against Myanmar over the military's brutal 2017 crackdown against the Rohingya Muslims, Tuesday, December 10.

👉The hearings are based on a lawsuit filed last month at the United Nations-sponsored court in The Hague by the small West African nation Gambia, on behalf of the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Gambia is accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to address the court on Wednesday.

More than 700,000 Rohingyas fled across the border into Bangladesh in August 2017 to escape a scorched earth campaign launched by the Myanmar military in response to attacks on security posts by Rohingya militants in western Rakhine state. A U.N. investigation concluded the campaign was carried out "with genocidal intent," based on interviews with survivors who gave numerous accounts of massacres, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes and the torching of entire villages.

The Rohingya were excluded from a 1982 citizenship law that bases full legal status through membership in a government-recognized indigenous group. The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, effectively rendering the ethnic group stateless.

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