New Delhi: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, located in Washington D.C., on Wednesday invalidated the prestigious Elie Wiesel Award, that it had presented to Aung San Suu Kyi in 2012.
The museum officially stated that the lack of action by the Myanmar State Counsellor, and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, against the genocide committed by the military against the Rohingya community, was the primary reason behind them stripping her of the award.
Scroll.in quoted, “Suu Kyi’s spokesperson said the museum’s decision was based on ‘the wrong information’, according to AP.” It made the Myanmar government ‘very disappointed and sad’, the spokesperson said. The annual award is given “to an internationally prominent individual whose actions have advanced the museum’s vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide and promote human dignity,” the museum reportedly said.
Over 7,00,000 Rohingyas fled the country to escape the alleged ‘ethnic cleansing’ committed by the country’s military against the Muslims in Rakhine state since August.
Instead of stopping the atrocities and ‘genocide’, the National League for Democracy (NLD) refused to cooperate with the United Nations investigators and did not allow them to investigate.
“As a living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, the Museum stands in solidarity with victims of genocide and atrocity crimes and attempts to do for victims today what was not done for the Jews of Europe. As Elie Wiesel said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,” said the release by the museum, who “did not take this decision lightly.”
This is not the first time, that an honour has been stripped in Suu Kyi’s case. She was criticised globally for how she had handled the crime against humanity. In November last year, her “Freedom of Oxford” honour was invalidated. Whereas in December, her “Freedom of the City of Dublin” award was stripped.
With agency inputs