Rohingya crisis: Another Oxford rebuff to Aung San Suu Kyi

Students of St Hugh’s College in Oxford have voted to remove Suu Kyi’s name from its junior common room because her response to the Rohingya crisis is "inexcusable".

Students at the Oxford college where Myanmar’s state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi studied have become the latest group to strip her of an honour bestowed on her years ago for her alleged defence of the handling of the Rohingya issue by Yangon authorities.

Myanmar's state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi smiles during a ceremony to accept cash provided by private donors for development tasks in Rakhine state at the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre in Naypyitaw on October 20, 2017. (AP)

Students of St Hugh’s College have voted to remove her name from its junior common room because her response to the crisis is "inexcusable", according to the JCR committee. The college earlier removed a portrait of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The Oxford City Council earlier voted to strip her of the Freedom of the City title, as other organisations in the UK followed suit amid growing official and non-official concern over the Rohingya issue.

In its motion, the St Hugh's JCR committee said its junior common room would be "unnamed" with immediate effect: "We must condemn Aung San Suu Kyi's silence and complicity on this issue and her condonation of the human rights offences in her own land.

"In doing so, she has gone against the very principles and ideals she had once righteously promoted."

Suu Kyi graduated from St Hugh's College in 1967 and was granted an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 2012.

The Theresa May government has strongly criticised Yangon's handling of the Rohingya issue, and raised aid targeted to refugees in Bangladesh.

Nearly 600,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh after a crackdown was launched by the Myanmar Army following an attack blamed on Rohingya militants in late August.