Press Releases

09/11/2020

Aung San Suu Kyi excluded from Sakharov Society

SPD should distance itself from her as well (Press Release)

Yesterday, Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi was excluded from the Sakharov Society. The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) welcomes this decision and calls for further measures against Myanmar's head of government. "Aung San Suu Kyi does not deserve the various awards she earned for past achievements. Her political agenda and her attempts to justify the genocide crimes against the Rohingya disqualify her for any award," criticized Jasna Causevic, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. "Now, the SPD should finally react and revoke the International Willy Brandt Prize.

Elections will be held in Myanmar in about four weeks, on November 8, 2020. The Rohingya are excluded from these elections: "All members of this ethnic group have been deprived of their citizenship, making them stateless persons without any rights," Causevic recalls. "However, the de facto head of state refuses to respect the 1982 Citizenship Act and to ensure that all the people in the country receive citizenship and the rights associated with it. The discriminatory clauses of the current legislation were designed to discriminate against specific ethnic groups, especially the Rohingya.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is trying to ensure that the crimes committed against the Rohingya will continue to go unpunished – thus stirring up even more hatred against this ethnic group. Millions of people are denied their fundamental rights," Causevic stated. "This behavior should not be supported by awards. The Holocaust Museum in Washington has already revoked its award, as has Amnesty International. The EU Parliament is slowly waking up, but does not yet want to deprive her of the Sakharov Prize, which she earned for her fight for democracy. The Nobel Prize Committee has expressed a similar opinion. "The SPD should finally distance itself from Aung San Suu Kyi. No one in the party could want her actions to defile the legacy of the great Willy Brandt," Causevic is convinced.

In the years 2016 and 2017, the decades of oppression of the Muslim Rohingya culminated in a genocide with many thousands of victims. Up to one million Rohingya were forcibly expelled from their homeland – and most of them are now living in completely overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Without citizenship and guarantees for protection, they have no hope of returning to their homes.

Several cases against Myanmar and its leadership are currently pending in international courts. Gambia had filed a complaint before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in December 2019. Aung San Suu Kyi herself had tried to justify the atrocities committed in her country. The International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, investigates independently on its own initiative. A few days ago, it became known that two Myanmar soldiers had admitted their involvement in the genocide. Among other things, they were involved in rape, murder, and the burial of bodies in mass graves. As far as is known, Aung San Suu Kyi has not yet made any statement on this matter.