#Myanmar #junta #disappointed #Supreme #Court #rejects #challenge #genocide #case
Myanmar’s military junta on Saturday expressed disappointment at the United Nations Supreme Court’s decision to greenlight a landmark case involving genocide allegations against the Rohingya Muslim minority.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Friday dismissed all of Myanmar’s objections to a case filed in 2019 by the West African state of Gambia.
The decision paves the way for full court hearings into allegations of a bloody crackdown on the Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017.
“Myanmar is disappointed that its preliminary objections were dismissed,” read a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s Facebook page.
The junta argued its objections were legally strong, the statement said, noting that a judge had a dissenting opinion on one area.
Myanmar had argued for a number of reasons that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter and should dismiss the case while it was still at an early stage.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled the Southeast Asian country five years ago amid harrowing reports of murder, rape and arson.
The mainly Muslim Gambia filed the case, alleging Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya violated the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
Around 850,000 Rohingya are still languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
It could be years before full hearings and a final verdict are reached.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in March that the Myanmar military’s violence against the Rohingya amounted to genocide.
Social Tags:
#Myanmar #junta #disappointed #Supreme #Court #rejects #challenge #genocide #case