Over 360,000 Demand Revocation of Myanmar Leader’s Nobel Peace Prize

An online petition calling for the revocation of Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s 1991 Nobel Peace Prize has accrued 366,000 signatures, PressTV reported.

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Critics have slammed her alleged complicity in what they consider to be the “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya Muslims in the country’s northwestern Rakhine state.

Launched on the website Change.org, the petition read, in part, that whenever a Nobel Peace Prize laureate “cannot maintain peace, then for the sake of peace itself, the prize needs to be returned or confiscated by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.”

Bearing in mind that Aung San Suu Kyi “appears to be deaf and has done nothing to protect her citizens,” petition signatories “demand the Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee confiscate or take back the Nobel Peace Prize” awarded to her.

“Only those who are serious in keeping the world peace may be awarded such a coveted Prize,” the petition added.

Some 125,00 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar's Rakhine state since violence intensified on Aug. 25, according to the latest U.N. figures. Myanmar officials claim violence broke out after Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. Rohingya activists, however, dispute that version.

At least 400 people have been killed as a result of the ensuing military counter-offensive. 

Warning about the risk of ethnic cleansing and destabilization of the region, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appealed to Myanmar's authorities to put an end to violence perpetrated against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine.

Human rights activists and the Rohingya community have accused the Myanmar Army of trying to force them out of the country with a campaign of arson and targeted killings.