Amal takes on ISIS on behalf of Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad

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I have seen this young lady speak and what she went through is unspeakable...........

I think she met Amal at one of venues she was speaking at..........

I have read an interview with Nadia Murad and was really impressed by her charisma and also touched by her cruel fate...

Nadia addressing United Nations

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Wonderful to know that George and Amal have been looking after her in their home

Thanks PAN for this story. What an incredibly strong and brave young woman.

Wow, when I read this title that she "takes on ISIS" I was expecting Amal to be pictured in full combat gear. And we give the Daily Mail criticism when they use hyperbole in their writing? Of course she's giving this young, brave girl an enormous amount of support, but she's also getting a hell of a lot of publicity for this. I'm sure her heart is in the right place, but please . . . can we cool it with the tabloid-type titles? Not everyone who reads this site thinks she's Saint Amal.

I don't think anyone is claiming her to be Saint. I'm assuming she's going pro bono with this case, and as a lawyer, the cases she takes have to benefit her too. The publicity is good for both, her and her client.

Not a problem, Premiere.

How about this?

Amal Clooney to represent Nadia Murad and surviving Yazidi sex slaves against ISIS in a pro-bono case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

No one on here is responsible for tabloid titles.
And I'm sure no one on here thinks Amal Clooney 
is a saint. We're not that stupid....are we ??  

party animal - not! wrote:Not a problem, Premiere.

How about this?

Amal Clooney to represent Nadia Murad and surviving Yazidi sex slaves against ISIS in a pro-bono case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Well done pan. 

It's a good story which is very welcome
to hear about after all the terrible things that keep happening
in our wonderful world.

I'm very tense about the Euro Football Tournament going on
at the moment in France. Can only hope that the security
and intelligence will be 100% alert and awake.

Sorry to go off topic !

Joanna wrote:No one on here is responsible for tabloid titles.
And I'm sure no one on here thinks Amal Clooney 
is a saint. We're not that stupid....are we ??  

That's a loaded question...............you really want an answer to that Joanna!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    LOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLLOL

Yikes headline or not...surely this is cart before the horse?.... Surely this should be instructed by a body/entity/UN/Middle East League...

I'm confused.... RUN GEORGE RUN....God knows  what will come next...

No none of us think she is a saint she is simply a human being doing her job the best she can.

Right, well, she's been asked by Nadia Murad and the Yazidi women prisoners of ISIS to represent them.

She now has the put the case together to present it to the International Criminal Court to ask if the court is prepared to indict ISIS.

It's certainly not going to be an overnight job. Many many hours of work just to see if it's possible within a legal framework.

I have a feeling that as ISIS/Daesh have called themselves a 'state' that might make a difference....

Amal is an accomplished lawyer in her field. I doubt she takes on any case without the full understanding of what she's getting into and what the odds are for a positive outcome.

I doubt anyone on this site thinks Amal is a saint. She is a strong, very smart and confident woman. And as a woman myself I always want to cheer on other women who do well .... in whatever line of work they are in.

Joanna, great to have your thoughts here. Miss you!

BTW the title of the topic here is just fine. We all know that Amal is a lawyer and when she "takes on" something it would mean in a legal sense.

Not disparaging her efforts - it's very commendable to stand up for women who've been so despicably victimized - but what's the hoped-for outcome? A resolution that ISIS is a terrorist organization? Punitive financial damages for the victims? How would any legal results be enforced?

Other than bombing ISIS into oblivion, I can't see that any legal findings will have any effect other than to stoke the egos of these animals as they glory in how much attention the world is giving them.

D

PigPen wrote:

Joanna wrote:No one on here is responsible for tabloid titles.
And I'm sure no one on here thinks Amal Clooney 
is a saint. We're not that stupid....are we ??  

That's a loaded question...............you really want an answer to that Joanna!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    

Oh yes please Pig Pen !!
       LOL....LOL...LOL

What Would He Say wrote:Yikes headline or not...surely this is cart before the horse?.... Surely this should be instructed by a body/entity/UN/Middle East League...

I'm confused.... RUN GEORGE RUN....God knows  what will come next...

Amal is tying to help.Good to see.Why you think George to run away now? He stay for bad time Gaddafi Nasheed playing ski on chair no bad back. George still to stay.why go now?

I think there are a number of reasons why this is not only important but in fact very important. Military response is one piece. However this is also a propaganda/image war. It is also about the response to the Daesh media/propaganda campaign. And about the battle for hearts and minds in an area of the world that is hugely complex. State or no state. We could debate the relevance and effectiveness of the ICC for a long time   But a judgment from the ICC on this issue could have significant  implications - hearts and minds and so on. And even if totally effective, a totally hopeless exercise, it is our international court. It is the only place in the world where such judgment can be rendered by the international community. In my opinion it is important if only because the rule of law is important. Daesh rejects the rule of law unequivocally - all law from any jurisdiction including the jurisdictions in which they operate. Making this approach an important and courageous. My two cents.

I think it's very important to get an international court ruling against Isis and their crimes, not only because there's a strong belief in innocent until proven guilty, and it's important to get court rulings against Isis. It's also a stand, to back the victims of Isis, to give them voice. Most victims of Isis are not in the western countries, but in the regions they operate. In order to defeat Isis, their victims are needed for help. We just can't expect the help without giving anything back, and this case is one way to loudly say to the victims that we hear you and we help you. Of course there won't be a traditional 'win' in this case, but there will be a moral win, which will unify is against Isis.

What Would He Say wrote:Yikes headline or not...surely this is cart before the horse?.... Surely this should be instructed by a body/entity/UN/Middle East League...

I think WWHS is right. If you want a condemnation of ISIS to really carry some weight, surely it should come from some coalition of international bodies and not from some movie star's lawyer wife (who is most likely only one of many on a team of lawyers working the case.) Yes, it is admirable that she is involved (especially so publicly - I expect George has upped his security budget substantially) but her opinion carries a lot less weight than a declaration from the UN or a coalition of Arab nations.

If you look at the statement Amal made from Doughty Street on this case:

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it's clear that she does not understand why this case has not be taken up already. And I suspect a level of frustration has led her to this point....... 

But absolutely this has to go before the ICC which is, by the way, the court which was set up by United Nations as it's highest court in the world

Thanks PAN.

The fight for justice and the rule of law is what is important. That is what Amal defends in all her cases.  This is her life's work. It's not just about winning and losing.  And her client and the Yazidi community have a voice in Amal to speak out about the atrocities that took place ....  To call it a genocide and to get the international court to respond.  

Agree oldweston with your two cents ..... and Fingersandtoes - the case may not be a traditional win but a moral one.

George with Nadia Murad

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I think this was in Armenia.............




and the British Amvassador to the UN having met her


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I must strike many of you as bat shit crazy, and may be I am...but hell, I simply don't think this is well thought through .....Helping the Yazidi's or the Foundation....

I feel it's way too early to start proceedings...We all well know there is the most horrendous things going on...But we have also had Amal and many like her sound biting about how the rule of law has to be reasoned and seen to be done, that we cannot appear as bad as the perpetrators and NOT give a full and transparent trial with full representation .....

Forgive my ignorance, but something is missing here??????

Again forgive me...but resources at this time are most earnestly needed elsewhere....sure Amal can give her time for free (although you can't buy the level of publicity this will buy for her) but you still have several dozen people paid to work on this...and NOT other things...Ultimately, its too early.....Bat shit crazy too early....

Just give me 3 names you are going to put on the paperwork??? Not numbers, names...

As for the "Foundation" again the poor devastated children...scattered all over the place...finding the kids would be a good start, I feel the tablets are secondary to finding the children who are lost and building safe places for them....again misplaces resources....These kids need tablets, tablets for TB, pneumonia, cancer....not for school in a box.....

Amal wants the private sector to bring resource together for the legal world...

Amal wrote:Clooney added, "the way the private sector can help is that, for instance, we could be designing a software programme that allows these observers to input information in a more uniform manner, so that we can ultimately compare one trial to another and eventually get something like a justice index, where you can compare one court to another. And [that would mean] governments could no longer hide behind the courts to the extent that they do at the moment."

Don't say I'm all doom and gloom and totally anti Mrs C.....
If any relative, PR, or close friend *ahem* of Amal reads here please pass on this little diamond of info and save yourselves much time....IBM Watson....I feel if you mention the name George Clooney, IBM will be more than happy to collaborate ....It's right up the shared alley....

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I gift this to you - as I hate to see resource and TIME,  TIME a resource you can't buy, being wasted....

WWHS - I don't think you're crazy . The situation is so huge and multi-faceted that it's hard to know where to start the healing. Above all, I believe children need to feel safe and loved. If at all possible they should be with their families in a safe place where they have clean water, food to eat, a roof over their heads,  good medical care and an education.

 But if we want to end the culture that allows the horrors that are occurring, the world has to speak with one very loud voice and make it known that this kind of  behavior is not acceptable to anyone and cannot be condoned for any reason. This needs to be taught to all children at their mother's knee.( I guess Amal is attempting to prod some kind of movement by the world community, but I don't hold out much hope for it being very effective.)

 These children also need to be taught to read and write. Giving them computers can open the world to them. (The IBM idea should have occurred to G&A.) The hard part, in many places, will be getting the adults to allow their children to be educated.

We can hope that Amal and George are successful, you will never know what can be accomplished if you don't try .

premiere wrote:Wow, when I read this title that she "takes on ISIS" I was expecting Amal to be pictured in full combat gear. And we give the Daily Mail criticism when they use hyperbole in their writing? Of course she's giving this young, brave girl an enormous amount of support, but she's also getting a hell of a lot of publicity for this. I'm sure her heart is in the right place, but please . . . can we cool it with the tabloid-type titles? Not everyone who reads this site thinks she's Saint Amal.

Amal wants to be Saint ,Kennedy and Coco Chanel but Fortunately people are smarter and Amal fails !

and that's WHAT this girl story all about ,good PR!

ISIS has been widely condemned ..... especially by the western world.  But ISIS could care less.  And at some point when ISIS is descimated there will be another extreme terrorist group to takes its place and reek havoc wherever it can.  That won't change.  Not in our lifetime.

Amal isn't attempting to attack the totality of ISIS.  She is doing a small part  to bring some amount of justice to this young woman and the Yazidi community.

I'm amazed how we assume here that we know better than Amal who has knowledge and access to resources we are not even aware of .... that somehow she hasn't done her "homework" on this case.  I'm not going to criticize her efforts when I'm not privy to what she knows and who she has consulted.  If she fails well then criticize but don't discount the effort and passion of wanting to give some small amount of justice to this young woman and the Yazidi community.

Any amount of press this story gets about the atrocities suffered by the Yazidis is an important reminder to what happened and indeed is good PR.

Amal can only do her job and i'm sure she knows what that is and what it entails.

I agree Donnamarie terrorism will never end there are too many hate filled people in the world to have it end.

LizzyNY wrote:WWHS - I don't think you're crazy . The situation is so huge and multi-faceted that it's hard to know where to start the healing. Above all, I believe children need to feel safe and loved. If at all possible they should be with their families in a safe place where they have clean water, food to eat, a roof over their heads,  good medical care and an education.

 But if we want to end the culture that allows the horrors that are occurring, the world has to speak with one very loud voice and make it known that this kind of  behavior is not acceptable to anyone and cannot be condoned for any reason. This needs to be taught to all children at their mother's knee.( I guess Amal is attempting to prod some kind of movement by the world community, but I don't hold out much hope for it being very effective.)

 These children also need to be taught to read and write. Giving them computers can open the world to them. (The IBM idea should have occurred to G&A.) The hard part, in many places, will be getting the adults to allow their children to be educated.

Hi Lizzy...I hi-lighted the above because this is my problem....much of what I said SHOULD HAVE OCCURRED TO HER (HIM?)....I have not included George because as of yet I have not heard anything out of his mouth regarding this "foundation"

ALL I HAVE HEARD IS A VERY STIRRING ATTENTION GRABBING SOUNDBITES FROM AMAL....

"2 MILLION REFUGEE CHILDREN"


"A LOST GENERATION"....

Excuse me....what a slap in the face to ALL the educators in Jordan, LEBANON etc;...doing so voluntarily, no PR, NO PAY (pro bono)....

I spoke with a freind who was on voluntary service with an aid group last year, 2015 stationed in Jordanian refugee camp for refugees from Syria.
I don't know anyone in any of the Lebanon or other camps, but same organisations operate there, so? ...As I said the missing children are the one's we should worry about and put resources into!....

REFUGEE CAMPS HAVE AND ALWAYS WILL DO THERE BEST FOR THE KIDS....

Here are the fact...as of 2015...


 61.6% of school-aged Syrian refugee children across Jordan were attending formal education, amounting to 63.5% of school-aged girls and 59.8% of school-aged boys.5  The highest attendance rates were found across the younger age groups (6-11) in all governorates — 70% of boys and 70.4% of girls, compared to 47.2% of boys and 54.5% of girls aged 12-17.  Both boys and girls had the highest attendance rates in Karak governorate (86.8% of boys aged 6-11, 84.3% of girls aged 6-11, and 65.9% of boys aged 12-17) except for girls aged 12-17 who had the highest attendance rates in Balqa governorate (63.5%).  Both boys and girls had the lowest attendance rates in Aqaba governorate (54.7% of boys aged 6-11, 60% of girls aged 6-11, and 28% of boys aged 12-17) except for girls aged 12-17 who had the lowest attendance rates in Mafraq governorate (46.5%).  

The three most common reasons why children were not attending school were: never having attended school (which could render older children ineligible for formal schooling); not having resources to pay for school materials; and having to work to earn money for the household. Lack of appropriate documentation was also raised as a barrier during focus group discussions.

Just look at the 3 reasons kids are NOT attending school....Don't know about you, I know you can get an app for almost anything these days but....An iPad REALLY????

To me this has shades of Nasheed all over again, more headline grabbing exaggeration's....where Amal had NO problem going on TV, meeting with Senators, Prime Minister, looking them straight in the eye and saying "He needs URGENT medical intervention"......woopy do...he got a miracle...last seen skateboarding an office chair.....

Maybe I'm dumb....but thats a circle I can't square....

As I said above, this has come out of Amal mouth....nothing from George....so I remain full square behind George....

And I repeat RUN GEORGE RUN...

Amal/ISIS  =  George/Omar al-Bashir  (The Sudanese leader is accused of committing war
                                                         crimes,  crimes against humanity and genocide during                                                           the Darfur conflict.)

The Court may say one thing, but I see the same outcome.

Interesting article in Newsweek.  It looks as though Amal has been working on this for some time..........

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No matter what the outcome at least they tried , doing nothing is getting them nowhere.

George loves and is proud of his wife , I have no doubt that he is 100 percent behind her and wants to help in anyway he can. So George is going no where as he stated he has a partner in her.

We've got a quite large Yazidi community in Germany, about 60,000 (there are 200,000 to 800,000 Yazidis worldwide). Most of them immigrated in the 1980s due to  repression in Turkey, others came from Iraq since 20009. They stay within their community and are not allowed to marry outside. This led to - at least - one honor killing and quite some forced marriages (in Germany). We had one Yazidi family in my hometown who owned a restaurant. The kids had to work in the restaurant after school as soon as school was over, and often worked until night. For a while I worked very close with our local police, and the officer said that they often went there to tell the adults that the kids are not allowed to work that long. Two girls wanted to leave the family, so tge police arranged for them to be picked up from school and taken to a chkldren's home. They always went back after a few days...

Well respected organizations the world over have recognized the crisis currently developing and evolving in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The UNHCR. Oxfam. Save the Children. World Vision. And on and on. Estimates range from 1 million to 3 million children in the camps without access to education or with such limited access as to make the utility of the exercise very questionable. There is not space here to list all the reasons why this problem is growing every day. 

The excerpt below from an article in the Globe and Mail on January 31, 2016 quoting Malala Yousafzai.

"There is a severe lack of school spaces in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which collectively host some four million Syrian refugees. As support for the Syrian refugee crisis has fallen short – the international community funded just 40 per cent of an $8.4-billion appeal by United Nations agencies last year, leading to cuts in food rations – young Syrian boys have been forced to leave school in order to take menial jobs and help their families make ends meet. Syrian girls, meanwhile, are being married off at younger and younger ages as their families seek to “protect” their daughters, while at the same time reducing the number of mouths they have to feed.
“We need to educate these children now. Otherwise it will be a lost generation,” Ms. Yousafzai said. “This generation is not lost yet. They need our help.” Globe and Mail, January 31, 2016.


That the Clooneys have added their substantial voice to this chorus in a good thing. In my humble opinion it is long past the time for the world to step up to the plate. 

We know that the Syrian refugees are treated and looked after well in several countries, I hope including mine. But one if the reason why they didn't stay in or near their own country was, that they weren't treated as refugees, didn't get any money, food or home. And their children weren't able or allowed to go to school, either because there was no school for them, or because they had to work so their families didn't starve.

And that's simply not their job. Their childhood is taken anyway, so they should at least be able to study to have a future...

Old west Amal not right.She threw iPad and box but no electric or socket.This time I think she try to get in on headline and fame

Amal is simply taking a case that she was asked for help on which she has been doing for years , well before she met George. This is her job and she obviously enjoys her work.

The last name will get this case attention which it certainly deserves and hopefully Amal and her team will be successful in this case. 

All those with crystal balls I'm glad you can see the future , I have always believed that anything is possible if you try.
Hopefully, a good result will come from this case, but if not they gave it their best and that is all anyone can be asked to do.

This in The New York Times today. A UN panel has concluded that ISIS committed genocide

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Yes, and here's a piece in the Guardian

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which mentions that Amal has already been to see David Cameron on the subject

Mr.  Cameron must like to inquire a about health of Mr Nasheeds operation. They hoodwink put stain on Amal everywhere she go.