The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum announced March 6 that it was rescinding the prestigious Elie Wiesel Award it had given to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for her failure to act against the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the country's Rohingya Muslims, according to NPR.
According to the museum, the award is the museum's highest honor and given to "internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum’s vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity." She received the award in 2012 for enduring 15 years of house arrest for taking on the military dictatorship in Myanmar.
The museum's letter to Aung San Suu Kyi revoking the award states:
As the military’s attacks against the Rohingya unfolded in 2016 and 2017, we had hoped that you—as someone we and many others have celebrated for your commitment to human dignity and universal human rights—would have done something to condemn and stop the military’s brutal campaign and to express solidarity with the targeted Rohingya population.
The National League for Democracy, under your leadership, has instead refused to cooperate with United Nations investigators, promulgated hateful rhetoric against the Rohingya community, and denied access to and cracked down on journalists trying to uncover the scope of the crimes in Rakhine State.
U.N. human rights officials have said Myanmar’s security forces may be guilty of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since Myanmar began systematically targeting Rohingya armed groups.
Read more here.
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