Nobel Peace Prize Conferred to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi Will Not Be Cancelled

The Nobel Peace Prize conferred to Aung San Suu Kyi will not be annulled in the wake of a United Nations report that stated Myanmar’s army carried out mass killings of Rohingya Muslims, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Wednesday.

The U.N. investigators said Myanmar’s army administered 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 while agitating for the restoration of democracy, has been criticised for declining to speak out against the army crackdown in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.

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

“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,” he said. And the rules regulating the Nobel Prizes do not allow for a prize to be withdrawn, he added.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of a panel of five Norwegians, mostly former politicians and academics, that reflect the different forces in the Norwegian Parliament. The other Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden.

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