Amal Clooney successfully represented the former president of the Maldives and secured a UN decision.
Colombo, Sri Lanka:
The Maldives' luxury tourist destination has commissioned well-known human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to represent it before the United Nations Supreme Court to seek justice for Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims who have been persecuted.
The Maldivian government said on Wednesday that it would officially join the mainly Muslim-African state of The Gambia to challenge Myanmar's military action in 2017, in which around 740,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh.
In a unanimous decision last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the Buddhist majority in Myanmar to take immediate measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya – until a complete case that could take years is reached.
Amal Clooney successfully represented former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed and secured a UN decision that his 2015 prison was illegal for 13 years.
With the fall of strong President Abdulla Yameen in 2018, Mohamed Nasheed and several other dissidents in the Sunni Muslim nation were freed from any wrongdoing by 340,000.
Mohamed Nasheed is currently the spokesman for the atoll nation in the national legislature.
The government welcomed the decision of the International Court of Justice to take provisional measures to protect victims' rights in Myanmar and prevent evidence from being destroyed in the current case.
"Accountability for the genocide in Myanmar is long overdue and I look forward to working on this important effort to find remedies for Rohingya survivors," the Maldivian government quoted Amal Clooney.
Thousands are said to have been killed in the crushing of Rohingya, and refugees have brought widespread reports of rape and arson by the Myanmar military and local Buddhist militias.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated feed.)
