BRUSSELS: The European Parliament on Thursday removed Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the "Sakharov Prize community" because of her "acceptance" of state crimes against the Rohingya community. The EU assembly awarded the former democracy campaigner its top human rights prize in 1990, a year before she received the Nobel Peace Prize, but she will no longer take part in events for laureates.

A source close to the parliament said the prize had been awarded for Suu Kyi's work before 1990 so could not be withdrawn, but that this exclusion was the strongest sanction available to MEPs.

A statement from the speaker and the group leaders in parliament said the decision was "a response to her failure to act and her acceptance of the ongoing crimes against the Rohingya community in Myanmar".

Majority-Buddhist Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority has long been discriminated against and around 740,000 people fled to Bangladesh in August 2017 to escape a military offensive.

Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner who fought to end military rule and is now the country's most powerful civilian official as "state counsellor", was once honoured around the world as a champion of freedom.