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Oxford Students To Alumna Aung San Suu Kyi: Rohingya Inaction Is 'Inexcusable'

Students at St. Hugh’s College in Oxford have joined an international chorus of critics in condemning their alumna Aung San Suu Kyi, now the de facto leader of Myanmar, for her response to the crisis engulfing the Rohingya in the country’s Rakhine State.

Undergraduates at St. Hugh’s, where Suu Kyi studied in the 1960s, voted this week to remove her name from the title of their junior common room. The gesture is a protest against her unwillingness to address the state-sponsored persecution of Myanmar’s Muslim-minority Rohingya communities.

The college, which also removed her portrait from its main entrance earlier this year, granted Suu Kyi an honorary doctorate as one of its “most distinguished and remarkable alumni” in 2012.

At the time, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former political prisoner, was still widely idolized as a champion of democracy and non-violent human rights advocacy. She spent nearly 15 years under house arrest while campaigning against Myanmar’s decades-long military dictatorship, and became the nation’s state counselor in 2016, a position equivalent to prime minister in many countries.

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a speech in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. on Sept. 19. (Photo: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a speech in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. on Sept. 19. (Photo: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

But the activist-turned-politician has been conspicuously silent as a military campaign denounced by the United Nations as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” continues to push Rohingyas out of the country at a staggering rate. At least 537,000 refugees ― more than half of Myanmar’s Rohingya population ― have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in a matter of weeks.

Crimes against humanity

In late August, a Rohingya insurgency attacked a number of government security posts in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where Rohingyas have endured decades of discrimination and extremely limited rights. Twelve officers were killed.

The military unleashed a retaliatory crackdown, which international observers have decried as barbaric and disproportionate. State actors have committed atrocities amounting to crimes against humanity, according to Amnesty International.

After conducting more than 150 interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, the human rights group released a report this week alleging that Rohingya men, women and children have been indiscriminately killed, burned, tortured, raped and shot, among other abuses.

A drawing by a Rohingya boy illustrates the horrific experiences he endured while fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh. (Photo: Courtesy of UNICEF)
A drawing by a Rohingya boy illustrates the horrific experiences he endured while fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh. (Photo: Courtesy of UNICEF)

“In this orchestrated campaign, Myanmar’s security forces have brutally meted out revenge on the entire Rohingya population of northern Rakhine State, in an apparent attempt to permanently drive them out of the country,” said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty’s crisis response director. “These atrocities continue to fuel the region’s worst refugee crisis in decades.”

The report features testimonies from Rohingya refugees recounting horrific tales of being burned alive and watching loved ones die before their eyes while attempting to escape security forces’ gunfire.

Suu Kyi’s silence

Bangladesh is grappling with insufficient resources to accommodate the influx of desperate Rohingyas. Many have traveled by land or sea for days without food.

In September, a boat carrying more than 60 refugees capsized off the Bangladeshi coast. All were presumed dead, including several babies.

As many as 1,800 Rohingya children are making the perilous journey across the border per day, according to a new report from UNICEF.

A Rohingya boy cries as he climbs on a truck distributing aid for a local NGO near the Balukali refugee camp on Sept. 20 in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (Photo: Kevin Frayer via Getty Images)
A Rohingya boy cries as he climbs on a truck distributing aid for a local NGO near the Balukali refugee camp on Sept. 20 in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (Photo: Kevin Frayer via Getty Images)

But as the crisis escalates, Suu Kyi has remained tight-lipped on the Rohingyas’ plight, despite mounting pressure to speak out and take action.

She skipped the 2017 U.N. General Assembly in New York, where world leaders discussed Myanmar’s Rohingya exodus in her absence.

Suu Kyi has even dismissed accusations of state-sponsored crimes against the minority group as “misinformation.” The government “has already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible,” her office claimed in a Facebook post last month.

But Myanmar’s government has tightened restrictions on urgently needed aid supplies and services in Rakhine State. It has also denied access to humanitarian groups as well as a U.N. fact-finding mission in the country and other attempted investigations into the alleged and documented persecution.

International outrage

Suu Kyi’s inaction has sparked protests around the world and calls for her Nobel Prize to be revoked.

“I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi” to condemn the “tragic and shameful treatment” of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, 20-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai wrote on Twitter. “The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”

South African anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu, another Nobel laureate, also issued an emotional plea to his “dear sister” Suu Kyi.

“I am now elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya,” he wrote. “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.”

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An Indonesian protester burns a picture of Suu Kyi during a rally in front of the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta on Sept. 2. (Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images)
An Indonesian protester burns a picture of Suu Kyi during a rally in front of the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta on Sept. 2. (Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Less than two weeks after the military crackdown erupted, Yanghee Lee, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, called the situation in Rakhine “really grave,” and said it was time for Suu Kyi to “step in.”

“That is what we would expect from any government: to protect everybody within their own jurisdiction,” Lee added.

The students at St. Hugh’s are urging others to join them in denouncing their disgraced alumna’s “inexcusable and unacceptable” negligence.

“We must condemn Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence and complicity on this issue and her condonation of the human rights offenses [in] her own land,” they said. “In doing so, she has gone against the very principles and ideals she had once righteously promoted.”

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An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal, in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesd, on Sept. 11, 2017.
An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal, in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesd, on Sept. 11, 2017.
Rohingya Muslim refugees disembark from a boat on the Bangladeshi side of Naf river in Teknaf on Sept. 13, 2017.
Rohingya Muslim refugees disembark from a boat on the Bangladeshi side of Naf river in Teknaf on Sept. 13, 2017.
Recently arrived Rohingya refugees wait to receive aid donations on Sept. 13, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Recently arrived Rohingya refugees wait to receive aid donations on Sept. 13, 2017, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Exhausted Rohingya refugees rest on the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 10, 2017.
Exhausted Rohingya refugees rest on the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 10, 2017.
Rohingya refugees reach out their hands to grab aid packages in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 17, 2017.
Rohingya refugees reach out their hands to grab aid packages in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 17, 2017.
Rokeya Begum, 23, holds her 4-day-old twins born in a makeshift tent on Sept. 17, 2017, in Kutupalong, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Rokeya Begum, 23, holds her 4-day-old twins born in a makeshift tent on Sept. 17, 2017, in Kutupalong, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Rohingyas are seen after arriving by boat on Sept. 14, 2017, in Shah Porir Dip, Bangladesh.
Rohingyas are seen after arriving by boat on Sept. 14, 2017, in Shah Porir Dip, Bangladesh.
Rohingya refugee children carry an old woman in a sling near the Balukhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 13, 2017.
Rohingya refugee children carry an old woman in a sling near the Balukhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 13, 2017.
This photograph taken on Sept. 12, 2017, shows Rohingya refugees arriving by boat at Shah Parir Dwip on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River after fleeing violence in Myanmar.
This photograph taken on Sept. 12, 2017, shows Rohingya refugees arriving by boat at Shah Parir Dwip on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River after fleeing violence in Myanmar.
A Rohingya Muslim woman gets off a boat after crossing over from Myanmar into the Bangladesh side of the border, in Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sept. 13, 2017. Rohingya Muslims pay local fishers 36 U.S. dollars in order to cross to Shah Porir Dwip peninsula.
A Rohingya Muslim woman gets off a boat after crossing over from Myanmar into the Bangladesh side of the border, in Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sept. 13, 2017. Rohingya Muslims pay local fishers 36 U.S. dollars in order to cross to Shah Porir Dwip peninsula.
A Rohingya refugee girl sits next to her mother who rests after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 6, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee girl sits next to her mother who rests after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 6, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee man pulls a child as they walk to the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 10, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee man pulls a child as they walk to the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 10, 2017.
Rohingya Muslim refugees build temporary makeshift shelters, after crossing the border from Myanmar, in the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on Sept. 10, 2017.
Rohingya Muslim refugees build temporary makeshift shelters, after crossing the border from Myanmar, in the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on Sept. 10, 2017.
Rohingya refugee people take part in Eid al-Adha prayer near the Kutupalang makeshift refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 2, 2017.
Rohingya refugee people take part in Eid al-Adha prayer near the Kutupalang makeshift refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 2, 2017.
Rohingya refugees climb up a hill after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 8, 2017.
Rohingya refugees climb up a hill after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 8, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee boy stands in a queue to receive relief supplies given by local people in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 16, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee boy stands in a queue to receive relief supplies given by local people in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 16, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee carries a child through a paddy field after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 6, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee carries a child through a paddy field after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 6, 2017.
A local man carries an old Rohingya refugee woman as she is unable to walk after crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 1, 2017.
A local man carries an old Rohingya refugee woman as she is unable to walk after crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 1, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee boy walks in the water after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 1, 2017.
A Rohingya refugee boy walks in the water after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Sept. 1, 2017.
Rohingya refugees stands in an open place during heavy rain, as they are held by Border Guard Bangladesh after illegally crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Aug. 31, 2017.
Rohingya refugees stands in an open place during heavy rain, as they are held by Border Guard Bangladesh after illegally crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Aug. 31, 2017.
Rohingya refugees stretch their hands to receive aid distributed by local organizations at Balukhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 14, 2017.
Rohingya refugees stretch their hands to receive aid distributed by local organizations at Balukhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 14, 2017.
Rohingya refugees walk on a muddy path at Thaingkhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 14, 2017.
Rohingya refugees walk on a muddy path at Thaingkhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 14, 2017.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.