Nobel Peace Prize Winner Yunus Faces Six-Month Jail In Bangladesh Court (Photo on X Muhammad Yunus @Yunus_Centre)
Muhammed Yunus, a Bangladeshi Nobel Peace winner, is expecting six-month imprisonment following a labour case on Monday. Grameen Telecom, a company that Yunus and his three other colleagues created was charged with violating labour regulations as their company failed to establish a fund for the welfare of employees.
The 83-year-old Yunus, with his innovative microfinance bank, had helped lift the poverty of millions of people. However, Bangladesh Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina had developed an enmity with the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, with her many reported verbal attacks against Yunus.
According to reports, the prime minister has called Yunus and his company “sucking blood” from the unprivileged. Yunus was also viewed as a political competitor to Shaikh Haseena. However, with Yunus being faced with the expected six-month jail term, his supporters claimed that the case was ‘politically motivated’ and accused the court of obeying what the Hasina government decided.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expecting a fifth office term in the national election of 2024, scheduled for next week.
The hearing of the case has been scheduled for Monday afternoon. Khurshid Alam Khan, the lead prosecutor told the news agency AFP that they proved that Professor Muhammad Yunus and others have violated the mandatory requirements of the labour laws. He also expects Yunus to get up to six months’ imprisonment if convicted. “We hope the court will hand down the highest punishment,” he added.
Yunus is currently facing more than 100 other charges over labour law irregularities and alleged graft. He had last month told reporters that he had not got any profit from any of his social businesses despite having more than 50 businesses, which he has set up in Bangladesh. “They were not for my personal benefit,” Yunus said.
One of Yunus’s lawyers called the case “meritless, false and ill-motivated”. And the sole aim of the case was “to harass and humiliate” Yunus in front of the world, the lawyer said.
Against the judicial harassment of Yunus by the government, many global dignitaries had in August this year published a joint letter denouncing the harassment, and the dignitaries included former US president Barack Obama and ex-UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. Yunus” fellow Nobel laureates also joined in the signatories raising their concern over his “safety and freedom.”
However, the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led government is increasingly accused of cracking down on political dissent. Amnesty International had in September accused the government of “weaponizing labour law,” and had called for an immediate end to the harassment, while Yunus was undergoing trial. It also called the trial “a form of political retaliation for his work and dissent.”
The latest development is widely viewed against the backdrop of the increasing popularity of Yusu, earmarking him as a potential political rival.
