[WATCH] Bob Geldof renounces Dublin honour in Aung San Kyi protest

Bob Geldof said he would return his ‘Freedom of the City of Dublin’ on Monday, in protest of the fact that Myanmar leader Aung Suu Kyi also holds the honour.

The political activist and Boomtown Rats frontman said he would be a “hypocrite” to share honours with “one who has become at best an accomplice to murder and a handmaiden to genocide”.

Geldof  slammed the Nobel peace prize winner for her silence over a humanitarian crisis that has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine state, in western Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh.

In a statement, Geldof said: “Her association with our city shames us all and we should have no truck with it, even by default. We honoured her, now she appals and shames us.” 

 “In short, I do not wish to be associated in any way with an individual currently engaged in mass ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of north-west Burma.

“I am a founding patron of the Aegis Trust, who are concerned with genocide prevention and studies. Its founders built and maintain the National Holocaust Museum of the UK. I spoke at the inaugural National Holocaust Memorial Day at Westminster and in my time, I have walked amongst peoples who were sectionally targeted with ethnic cleansing,” he added.

Geldof, 66, who was born in County Dublin, has held the freedom of the city since 2005. He said that while he was a “proud Dubliner”, he could not hold the accolade alongside Aung San Suu Kyi.

 “The moment she is stripped of her Dublin Freedom perhaps the council would see fit to restore to me that which I take such pride in. If not, so be it.,” he added in the statement.

Around 82 people have been awarded the honour since 1876. It is reserved for those individuals who have made a contribution to the city of Ireland.

Geldof’s latest criticism followed comments he made at the One World Summit in Colombia last month in which he labelled the Myanmar leader as “one of the great ethnic cleansers of our planet”.

Myanmar’s de facto leader is to be stripped of the Freedom of the City of Oxford in coming weeks, after the city council voted unanimously to support a cross-party motion deeming it “no longer appropriate” for her to hold the honour. The council will hold a meeting to confirm the move on 27 November.