Attention:  Dr. Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation

Dear Dr. Heikensten, 

I would like to add my voice to the Guardian's call to Take away Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel peace prize. She no longer deserves it

 George Monbiot wrote, "Few of us expect much from political leaders: to do otherwise is to invite despair. But to Aung San Suu Kyi we entrusted our hopes. To mention her name was to invoke patience and resilience in the face of suffering, courage and determination in the unyielding struggle for freedom. She was an inspiration to us all.”

He went further to draw a contradictory picture of what she was and the monster she has turned to. "The treatment of the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority in Myanmar, is repugnant. By the standards Aung San Suu Kyi came to symbolise, it is grotesque. They have been described by the UN as “the world’s most persecuted minority”, a status that has not changed since she took office, " he said. 

The author continues to describe the persecution the Ruhingya people are facing. "I doubt she has read the UN human rights reporton the treatment of the Rohingyas, released in February. The crimes it revealed were horrific.

It documents the mass rape of women and girls, some of whom died as a result of the sexual injuries they suffered. It shows how children and adults had their throats slit in front of their families.

It reports the summary executions of teachers, elders and community leaders; helicopter gunships randomly spraying villages with gunfire; people shut in their homes and burnt alive; a woman in labour beaten by soldiers, her baby stamped to death as it was born.

It details the deliberate destruction of crops and the burning of villages to drive entire populations out of their homes; people trying to flee gunned down in their boats."

As the Guardian’s columnist stated, I believe the Nobel committee should retain responsibility for the prizes it awards, and withdraw them if its laureates later violate the principles for which they were recognised.

I would like to plea for your conscious in considering taking away this award for the sake of maintaining the respect your organization has retained over the decades. Otherwise, you will not only tarnish the image of Noble peace prize, you will make it a laughing stock for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Abubakar N. Kasim

Toronto, Canada