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Aung San Suu Kyi
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Rohingya crisis: Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi will keep Nobel Peace Prize despite UN ‘genocide’ report

Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised for failing to speak out against the army crackdown in Rakhine State

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A demonstration in Canada over the Rohingya crisis this week. Photo: AP
Reuters
The Nobel Peace Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi will not be withdrawn in the light of a United Nations report that said Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings of Muslim Rohingya, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has said.

UN investigators said on Monday that Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent”, and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the Myanmar government and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy, has been criticised for failing to speak out against the army crackdown in Rakhine State.
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Myanmar General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: Reuters
Myanmar General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: Reuters

“It’s important to remember that a Nobel Prize, whether in Physics, Literature or Peace, is awarded for some prize-worthy effort or achievement of the past,” Olav Njoelstad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said on Monday.

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“Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for democracy and freedom up until 1991, the year she was awarded the prize.”

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