Stand Against Genocide by Stripping Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace Prize

Ms. Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair
Norwegian Nobel Committee

Dear Ms. Reiss-Andersen,

For decades, Myanmar has violently and systematically persecuted its minorities, including the Rohingya people as well as the Shan, Kachin, Ta’ang, Karen, Chin, Mon and Kayar communities.  

Investigations by the United Nations and other bodies confirm the Myanmar military’s leading role in this persecution.  They have said that it may amount to the gravest of international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.  And this persecution continues until today, with the perpetrators going largely unpunished.

All of this is happening under the watch of Myanmar’s effective head of state: the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi.  

But rather than focusing on protecting Myanmar’s minorities and pursuing accountability for atrocities against them, Aung San Suu Kyi has been denying them while dismissing UN investigations. In her capacity as Foreign Minister, she has also blocked UN investigators from entering into the country, further justifying the military’s egregious and pervasive rights violations.  

And this is so even as trials have begun to examine these alleged events in the world’s top courts – the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court – and in other national courts.  

The Nobel Peace Prize is regarded worldwide as a symbol of hope and solidarity.  Its recipients are recognized as such, and linked to the prize, forever. Therefore, the Nobel Committee cannot simply ignore what its prize recipients do after receiving the prize.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent conduct has proven that she is wholly unworthy of holding the Nobel Peace Prize.  She is arguably complicit in the apparent commission of mass atrocity crimes in Myanmar. Every day that she continues to hold the Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi undermines all that it stands for. 

Several organizations, countries, and cities – including her own alma mater, St Hugh’s College, Oxford – have already taken a stand and stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of honors they had awarded her.  We urge you to join them.