More than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the Buddhist majority's western Rakhine state in a military crackdown from August last year
New York: Amnesty International has withdrawn its highest honour from Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi in light of what it said was the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s “shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for.”
BREAKING: We have withdrawn our highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, from Aung San Suu Kyi, in light of the Myanmar leader’s shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for. https://t.co/Ag4ndGmVKo pic.twitter.com/9Po3olDmlA
— Amnesty International (@amnestyusa)The human rights organisation announced on Monday that its secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, informed Suu Kyi that it was revoking her 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Amnesty has criticised the failure of Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim population.
Naidoo said Amnesty expected Suu Kyi to use her “moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever” she saw it, especially in Myanmar.
“Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defense of human rights,” Naidoo told her.
"Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you," Naidoo added.
Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept to power in 2015 in a landslide victory ending decades of military rule in the southeast Asian country of around 50 million.
However, her failure to speak up for Rohingya Muslims who were driven out by the army in an ‘ethnic cleansing’, cost her heavily.
Suu Kyi was stripped of her honourary Canadian citizenship over her failure to speak up for the Rohingyas last month.
Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
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