Nobel winner Malala calls out Suu Kyi on Rohingyas
: A Nobel laureate and Muslim nations in Asia criticised Myanmar’s persecution of its Rohingya Muslim minority as thousands in Indonesia and elsewhere staged angry protests against Aung San Suu Kyi and her government.
At least 87,000 refugees from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since violence escalated in late August, according to the United Nations, overwhelming existing camps for the displaced. Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, said her “heart breaks” at the suffering of Rohingya Muslims and urged Myanmar’s leader, a fellow Nobel laureate, to condemn the violence against the Rohingya minority.
“Over the last several years I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,” she said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”
The latest eruption of violence in Rakhine state has killed more than 400 people and triggered an exodus of Rohingya into Bangladesh. It began after insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.
In response, Myanmar’s military unleashed what it called “clearance operations.” Human Rights Watch says satellite imagery shows 700 buildings were burned in the Rohingya Muslim village of Chein Khar Li, just one of 17 locations in Rakhine state where the rights group has documented burning of homes and property.
Myanmar denies citizenship to Rohingya, who have lived in the country for generations, and the group has frequently faced hostility and violence from the Buddhist majority, often fanned by hard-line monks and inflammatory comments from officials.
Reports of killings by security forces battered the reputation of Suu Kyi, previously lionized for her resistance to Myanmar’s former military rulers.