The outgoing UN human rights chief says Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi should have resigned over last year's violent military campaign against Rohingya Muslim in Rakhine State.
In an interview with the BBC, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said Suu Kyi, who leads the Myanmar government, should have considered returning to house arrest rather than excusing the military.
It comes as UN investigators said on Monday the Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with "genocidal intent", and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law.
Myanmar rejected the UN report, which blamed Suu Kyi for failing to prevent the crackdown, as one-sided.
"She could have stayed quiet - or even better, she could have resigned.
"There was no need for her to be the spokesperson of the Burmese military. She didn't have to say this was an iceberg of misinformation. These were fabrications.
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"She could have said look, you know, I am prepared to be the nominal leader of the country but not under these conditions.
"Thank you very much, I will resign, I will go back into house arrest - I cannot be an adjunct accessory that others may think I am when it comes to these violations."
Norway's Nobel Institute said on Wednesday it had no intention of withdrawing its Peace Prize from Suu Kyi.
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Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy in her country.
"It's important to remember that a Nobel Prize, whether in Physics, Literature or Peace, is awarded for some prize-worthy effort or achievement of the past," said Olav Njoelstad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, on Wednesday.
"Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for democracy and freedom up until 1991, the year she was awarded the prize," he said.
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And the rules regulating the Nobel Prizes do not allow for a prize to be withdrawn, he added.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of a panel of five Norwegians, mostly former politicians and academics, that reflect the different forces in the Norwegian Parliament. The other Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden.
Last year, the head of the Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, also said it would not strip the award after previous criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi's role in the Rohingya crisis.
"We don't do it. It's not our task to oversee or censor what a laureate does after the prize has been won," she said in a television interview.
"The prize winners themselves have to safeguard their own reputations."
Source: SBS News
