Iran Press/ Asia: Aung San Suu Kyi was pictured smiling as she walked through the airport in the nation's capital, Naypyitaw, flanked by officials, a day after thousands rallied in the city to support her and a prayer ceremony was held in her name.
Crowds are expected to gather again in the afternoon to send off several dozen supporters who will travel to The Hague in the Netherlands and demonstrations are planned throughout the coming week.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is to be asked to implement an interim injunction asking Myanmar to stop deadly violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslims.
Gambia, a tiny, mainly Muslim West African country, filed a lawsuit in November accusing Myanmar of genocide, the most serious international crime. Gambia's request for a provisional injunction is the legal equivalent of seeking a restraining order against a country.
According to Reuters, during three days of hearings starting Dec. 10, it will ask the 16-member panel of U.N. judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to impose “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya before the case can be heard in full.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since a 2017 military crackdown, which U.N. investigators found in August to have been carried out with “genocidal intent”.
The office of Myanmar's ruler Aung San Suu Kyi, meanwhile, said she would personally lead her country's defense at the ICJ.
Myanmar's legal team is expected to argue that genocide did not occur, that the top UN court lacks jurisdiction, and that the case fails to meet a requirement that a dispute exists between Myanmar and Gambia.
Suu Kyi has come under heavy international criticism for her refusal to even condemn the widely-reported bloody violence targeting the Muslims Rohingya.
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