Two men sit under the the remnants of their homes in Sittwe, the provincial capital of Myanmar’s western Rakhine State. Photo Credit IRIN/Khine Thurein/UN
Condemning Myanmar’s ongoing genocide of Rohingya Muslims as “shameful,” Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Laureate, is asking Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out against the brutal campaign of persecution against the Muslim minority, which has been condemned by human rights activists as genocide.
Malala, who survived a vicious Taliban militant attack in 2012 in her country of origin, Pakistan, has been championing the cause of education for children around the world.
On Monday, she posted a statement on her Twitter account, blasting the heart-rending treatment of Rohingyas, including innocent children.
“Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned the tragic and shameful treatment,” she said of the killings going on in Rakhine state of Myanmar.
“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,” she said pointedly.
Malala called for an immediate end to violence against around one million Rohingya Muslims, who have been subjected to a ruthless campaign of violence with images of maimed, brutalized and severed bodies causing international outrage and condemnation.
Suu Kyi is considered a powerful political influence over Myanmar’s government, which claims it is killing insurgents. In the midst of the campaign, Rohingya refugees, who escaped to neighboring Bangladesh, have told horrible tales of torture and death. Last week Nobel Laureates wrote a letter to the Nobel committee to strip Suu Kyi of the honor in the face of her endorsing silence over state-sponsored killing of Rohingya Muslims.
“Stop the violence. Today we have seen pictures of small children killed by Myanmar’s security forces. These children attacked no one yet their homes were burned to the ground.”
The rights activist, who is studying at Oxford in London, and turned 20 this year, asked Myanmar to grant citizenship to the Rohingyas who were born there.
“If their home is not Myanmar, where they have lived for generations, then where is it?” Malala questioned,
