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By Reuters
YANGON – Amnesty International withdrew its most prestigious human rights award to Aung San Suu Kyi, accusing the Myanmar leader of perpetuating human rights violations by not denouncing the violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority .
Formerly hailed as a champion of the struggle for democracy, Suu Kyi has been deprived of a series of international awards for her Rohingya exodus that began in August 2017.
"We expected you to continue to use your moral authority to denounce injustice wherever you see it, including in Myanmar itself," said Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty's general secretary, in a letter to Suu Kyi.
More than 700,000 members of the mostly stateless group crossed the western border of Myanmar to travel to Bangladesh after the Myanmar army launched a crackdown in response to Rohingya insurgency attacks on security forces.
United States investigators accused the army of having launched a campaign of killings, rapes and arson with "genocidal intent".
The administration of Suu Kyi rejected the findings, saying that the military action was engaged in a legitimate counter-insurgency operation.
The international human rights group has named Suu Kyi the recipient of the 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award, while she was still under house arrest for her opposition to the oppressive military junta of Myanmar.
In the eight years following her release, Suu Kyi led her party to electoral victory in 2015 and set up a government the following year, but she must share power with generals and no one. has no control over the security forces.
Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday that she had not spoken and that she "protected the security forces from any responsibility" in the face of violence against the Rohingya, calling it " shameful betrayal of the values that she previously defended ".
The secretary-general of the world rights organization, Kumi Naidoo, wrote Sunday to Suu Kyi to announce the withdrawal of his prize because he was "deeply dismayed to no longer represent a symbol of hope, of courage and defense of human rights ".
Zaw Htay, the main spokesman for the Myanmar government, did not respond to Reuters calls on Monday, asking for comments.
In March, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum canceled its first prize in Suu Kyi and lost other honors, including the freedom of the cities of Dublin and Oxford, England, to the Rohingya crisis.
In September, the Canadian Parliament voted to remove Suu Kyi from her honorary citizenship.
Critics have called for the withdrawal of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, but the foundation that oversees the award said it would not do it.
Amnesty International also stated that Suu Kyi did not condemn the abuses committed by the army in the conflict between the army and ethnic minorities in northern Myanmar and that his government imposed restrictions on access of humanitarian groups.
His government has also failed to stop attacks on freedom of expression, he said.
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