Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Aung San Suu Kyi, seen here at a business summit in Singapore on Monday

Amnesty International is stripping Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. It was the latest in a string of awards the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner lost since Myanmar's military drove 720,000 Rohingya out of the Buddhist majority country in what the United Nations has called an act of genocide. The London-based global human rights organisation said it was revoking the Ambassador of Conscience Award it gave Suu Kyi in 2009 while she was still under house arrest. "Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights," Amnesty International chief Kumi Naidoo said in a letter to Suu Kyi released by the group. “Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you.”

The group said it informed Suu Kyi of the decision on Sunday. She has so far issued no public response. Suu Kyi was globally hailed as a freedom fighter who stood up to her country’s feared military dictatorship while spending 15 years under house arrest. In the eight years since she was released, Suu Kyi led her party to election victory in 2015 and set up a government the following year, but she has had to share power with generals and has no oversight and no appetite to rein in military forces. But her tenure has been marred by a failure to speak up for Rohingya Muslims who were driven out of the country by the army in what the United Nations has called an ethnic cleansing campaign. Many are believed to have been either murdered or tortured and raped. The 73-year-old was stripped of her honourary Canadian citizenship over her failure to speak up for the Rohingyas last month. She has also lost numerous smaller awards from individual universities and local and regional governments.
Amnesty International strips Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, which she received in 2009, because of her inaction regarding the persecution of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State and the military operations in Kachin and Shan State.