Burmese freedom icon Aung San Suu Kyi is the surprise inclusion in this year's line-up of rogues competing for the annual IHRC Islamophobia awards.

The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner has been nominated for her continuing refusal to back citizenship calls by the country's oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority.

The Burmese government's denial of statehood to the Rohingya is one of the main reasons they are described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted peoples.

Along with her National League for Democracy party, Aung San Suu Kyi has tiptoed around the issue and has even refused to condemn the state-supported attacks that ravaged Rohingya communities in 2012. Shin Wirathu, the Buddhist monk believed to be behind the wave of anti-Muslim hostility sweeping Burma, is also among this year's nominees.

Not for the first time, the shortlist also features a Muslim nominee, this time in the figure of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the army general who conducted a bloody campaign to remove and then ban the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood and put Egypt back on the road to military rule.

Closer to home, the health minister Dan Poulter finds himself on the shortlist for initiating steps to ban NHS employees from wearing the niqab.

The Conservative minister recently ordered a review of all current health care guidance on the issue and asked clinical regulators to draw up clear rules to ban the wearing of the face veil by health care staff while they are in contact with patients.

US president Barack Obama is also nominated for "mostly everything", including his continued use of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen to carry out extra-judicial killings of anti-US fighters.

The strikes also claim the lives of many civilians. Obama also continues to renege on promises to close the sadistic Guantanamo Bay detention facility housng so-called terrorism suspects.

Although the awards are intended to be a tongue in cheek poke at leaders of all stripes, it does carry a serious message.

Islamophobia is on the rise all over the world, particularly in the West, and the event serves to focus attention on the problem. The event will consist of performances including comedians, gala dinner, and a fundraising charity auction.

The 2014 Islamophobia Awards will be held in London on 21 February at the Holiday Inn Wembley Empire Way, London HA9 8DS, starting 6pm.