Conscienceless

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Liberty Hall in Dublin ahead of a visit by Aung San Suu Kyi in 2012

Amnesty International has withdrawn its Ambassador of Conscience Award from Aung San Suu Kyi “in light of her shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for”.

Last year, Dublin City Council stripped the Myanmar leader of her Freedom the City of Dublin award following her indifference to the persecution of her country’s Rohingya people.

Via Amnesty International:

Yesterday, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Kumi Naidoo wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi to inform her the organisation is revoking the 2009 award.

Half way through her term in office, and eight years after her release from house arrest, Naidoo expressed the organisation’s disappointment that she had not used her political and moral authority to safeguard human rights, justice or equality in Myanmar, citing her apparent indifference to atrocities committed by the Myanmar military and increasing intolerance of freedom of expression.

….When she was finally able to accept the award at an event held in Dublin in 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi asked Amnesty International to “not take either your eyes or your mind off us and help us to be the country where hope and history merges.”

Amnesty International Ireland chief Colm O’Gorman said:

“When we honoured Aung San Suu Kyi here in Dublin, it was for a Myanmar that would protect and defend the human rights of all. This is what Irish people in their tens of thousands had campaigned for decades to achieve.

We will continue to fight for justice and human rights in Myanmar – with or without her support.

Amnesty International took Aung San Suu Kyi’s request that day very seriously, which is why we will never look away from human rights violations in Myanmar.”

Amnesty International Ireland

Previousaly: Aung San Suu Kyi on Broadsheet

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29 thoughts on “Conscienceless

  1. Daisy Chainsaw

    She was one to look up to for a long time. Turns out she’s just another murdering despot, but with a pretty flower in her hair.

    Gutted.

    1. McVitty

      What a bunch of sexists, eh? I think we can resolve all this by creating a new social weapon called “gender exceptionalism” – if we all pull together, we can turn the ceiling on its head and vindicate this remarkable individual. And besides, the patriarchy made her do it.

      Politicians are rarely decent people – as they say, politics attracts the worst of people and the best of them are corruptible. Lesson is to not make assumptions based on what is presented…but that makes for a cynic – catch 22

        1. McVitty

          ah, I was trying to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. I’ve noticed a lot of Daisy’s comments have this “women of the world unite” vibe which isn’t always the best approach, especially with public figures are concerned.

      1. English teacher

        …the best of them are corruptible…
        Eh, no they arent’t.

        The vasted majority are corruptible but the majority of their best are not.
        – There’s a difference.

  2. jusayinlike

    She is stopping the flow of heroin coming from Burma. Amnesty international are an organisation run by spooks.

  3. phil

    I might have heard it wrong, but I think the Irish state has offered to pay her legal costs , should the need arrive…

  4. Dhaughton99

    Can Councils just stick to housing and fixing the roads rather than getting involved in politics?

  5. newsjustin

    Lol at Abortion…I mean Amnesty…International having to take back a human rights award. Perhaps it’s not the only way they’ve erred in recent years.

    1. Nigel

      It does show that of they find they have erred they will come out and admit it, though, doesn’t it, which should be reassuring if you’re concerned.

      1. f_lawless

        Although admitting you wrongly endorsed war propaganda after the fact wouldn’t be of much reassurance or comfort to those who were on the receiving end of Western imperialist campaigns, I’d imagine

        1. Nigel

          What war propaganda? They thought she was an advocate of human rights. They were wrong, or she changed for some reason. She’s been denounced and disavowed. There’s not much comfort in it for anyone.

  6. f_lawless

    The only thing is Amnesty has a track record of endorsing Western propaganda in the lead up to military action – the Iraqi incubators case; the Serbian “rape camp” hoax..; is this more of the same.?
    I think I posted this before but anyway worth bearing in mind the testimony of whistleblower Prof. Francis Boyle – for years on the board of directors of AI USA.
    “There are many people of good will and good faith working at the grassroots level of Amnesty International and AIUSA who genuinely believe that they are doing meaningful and effective work to protect human rights around the world. But at the top of these two organizations you will find a self-perpetuating clique of co-opted Elites who deliberately shape and direct the work of AI and AIUSA so as to either affirmatively support, or else not seriously undercut, the imperial, colonial, and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel.”
    https://www.countercurrents.org/boyle231012.htm

    1. f_lawless

      This sounds to me a more plausible explanation of what going on in Myanmar than one where Aung San Suu Kyi has had a sudden personality transplant
      “Like Syria’s Assad, who also was thought primed and in their pocket, Suu Kyi’s government is being targeted in this manner because it refuses to hand Myanmar to the West on a plate, as had been planned and understood. Instead it has moved closer to China and its ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, this in defiance of the ‘Pivot to Asia’ and at the expense of Western imperialism. ”
      http://thepensivequill.am/2017/11/the-myanmar-deception.html

  7. Dub Spot

    These “awards” are meaningless. Do away with them, just like honorary degrees in Trinity et al should be done away with. A political echo chamber that didn’t save one life or provide one hungry child with a meal.

    Take Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize 2009 awarded on the basis of . . . for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do” .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize

    and then:

    America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy

    So, Dublin CC it’s safe to give back Bob Geldof his Freedom of Dublin…. never killed anyone.

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