Oxford City Council Revokes 'Freedom of Oxford' Award from Aung San Suu Kyi

The Oxford City Council is revoking the Freedom of Oxford award from Aung San Suu Kyi in response to her positions regarding the Rohingya Muslim minority. She is an advisor to the Myanmar government but effectively leads the country's government. Suu Kyi, who is an alumna of Oxford, received the award in 1997 for her long struggle for democracy in Myanmar. However, the Oxford City Council considered a proposal from an opposition party stating that the award 'is no longer deserving of her'. According to a report from CNN on Wednesday, the Oxford City Council stated that it had asked Suu Kyi in a letter to 'do whatever she can to stop the ethnic cleansing in her country', but she did not respond to this letter. Aung San Suu Kyi studied at Oxford University from 1964 to 1967, where she met her husband, Michael Aris. In 2012, while receiving an honorary doctorate in civil rights from her former university, she said, 'The most important thing about Oxford for me is not the things I learned from the texts and books we had to read, but the utmost respect for human civilization.' However, in recent weeks, Suu Kyi has faced severe international criticism and condemnation from human rights organizations for her responses to the violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority, with Amnesty International accusing her of 'lying and blaming the victims'. The violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has led to approximately 500,000 of them fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh in the past month and a half. The UN Human Rights Commissioner has called this event ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi's handling of this issue has drawn global attention. Mary Clarkson, a representative of the Oxford City Council and a member of the UK Labour Party, who proposed revoking the Freedom of Oxford award from Suu Kyi, stated in the council meeting that her failure to respond to this crisis and the rejection of dozens of reports about sexual violence against Rohingya women are among the reasons that necessitate the revocation of the award. The report states that the Oxford City Council will finalize the revocation of the Freedom of Oxford award from Suu Kyi in its next meeting, which will take place in November.