Global Leaders Renew Call for Justice for Professor Yunus

In response to the unjust verdict rendered against Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Yunus and three colleagues on January 1, 2024, 247 global leaders including 127 Nobel laureates have written a third open letter to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh calling for her to end this travesty of justice. There is an accompanying press release, and the letter was published as a full-page ad in the Washington Post on January 29. Their letter follows earliers ones in March 2023 and August 2023. Each letter has attracted more signatories than the previous ones. Concerned citizens around the world can support their call for justice in a variety of ways, including going on record by publishing a photo of themselves with #IStandWithYunus visible in the image (here is a fine example). Other ways to help can be found in this call to action. At the Protect Yunus Campaign, we stand in solidarity not just with Professor Yunus and his three colleagues who were unjustly convincted, but with all Bangladeshis facing oppression.

Dear Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,

We write to express profound concern over the continued harassment and potential jailing of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. We agree with Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who left the courtroom on January 1, 2024, and called the verdict “a travesty of justice.”

We note with concern the rushed legal process and lack of consistency with regard to how Bangladesh’s laws are applied. The criminal verdict included time in prison for four board members of Grameen Telecom, a nonprofit organization, including Professor Yunus, who is 83 and who serves the organization in an uncompensated non-executive chairman role. It is evident that, at most, only a small civil or administrative fine against Grameen Telecom was warranted under the relevant laws.

We further note that the recent election in Bangladesh held on January 7, 2024, witnessed the suppression and imprisonment of opposition leaders, and crackdowns on the media and independent voices, which have been extensively documented by many human rights and other pro-democracy groups in Bangladesh and abroad.

Responding to a previous letter on the ongoing harassment and intimidation of Professor Yunus, which was signed by more than 190 world leaders including 108 Nobel Prize winners (many of whom are also signatories to this letter), you told a news conference at the end of August 2023 that the signatories should “send experts, and lawyers to see if there is any injustice or whether the lawsuit was wrongfully done.” We accept your invitation. This examination should include not only the labor law case whose verdict was delivered on January 1, but also the current investigation being conducted by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

We would like to propose a senior international lawyer to lead a small team of independent legal experts to conduct this review. We would like to begin immediately and request that any jail sentences for Professor Yunus and his colleagues be suspended pending the review.

As you know, Professor Yunus has received 61 honorary degrees from universities in 24 countries. Yunus Social Business Centers have been established at 107 universities in 39 countries. He has received 136 awards from 33 countries, including national honors from 10 countries.

Professor Yunus is one of only seven individuals in history to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He received the “Olympic Laurel Award” from the International Olympic Committee at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and the World Football Summit Award in Saudi Arabia in 2023. Perhaps most importantly, according to independent research, his work in microfinance and social business has led to significant improvements in living conditions in Bangladesh and in many other nations.

The world rightly celebrates Professor Yunus. In fact, it is in dire need of his continued active leadership on issues such as poverty reduction, climate change, waste reduction, social business, health care and education for the poor, and mobilizing the world of sports to contribute to social and environmental advancements, among others. He is actively engaged in designing and supporting efforts in many of our countries, and having him spend any time in jail on meritless charges would represent a major loss to the global community.

For all these reasons, leaders and citizens everywhere are watching closely to see how he is being treated by his own government. Professor Yunus and his fellow defendants should not be facing the prospect of imprisonment. We urge you to uphold Bangladesh’s international human rights obligations including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a state party, by immediately putting an end to this travesty of justice.

Sincerely,

Nobel Laureates

Peace

Barack H. Obama, Peace, 2009

Jose Ramos-Horta, Peace, 1996

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Peace, 1976

Oscar Arias Sanchez, Peace, 1987

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Peace, 1996

Jody Williams, Peace, 1997

Shirin Ebadi, Peace, 2003

Mohamed ElBaradei, Peace, 2005

Albert Arnold Gore Jr., Peace, 2007

Leymah Roberta Gbowee,  Peace, 2011

Tawakkol Karman, Peace, 2011

Malala Yousafzai, Peace, 2014

Juan Manuel Santos, Peace, 2016

Denis Mukwege, Peace, 2018

Nadia Murad, Peace, 2018

Dmitry Muratov, Peace, 2021

Maria Ressa, Peace, 2021

Lech Walesa, Peace, 1983

Chemistry

Walter Gilbert, Chemistry, 1980

Roald Hoffmann, Chemistry, 1981

John C. Polanyi, Chemistry, 1986

Yuan T. Lee, Chemistry, 1986

Jean-Marie Lehn, Chemistry, 1987

Robert Huber, Chemistry, 1988

Hartmut Michel, Chemistry, 1988

Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988

Thomas R. Cech, Chemistry, 1989

Sir John E. Walker, Chemistry, 1997

Ryoji Noyori, Chemistry, 2001

Kurt Wuthrich, Chemistry, 2002

Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003

Aaron Ciechanover, Chemistry, 2004

Avram Hershko, Chemistry, 2004

Richard R. Schrock, Chemistry, 2005

Roger D. Kornberg, Chemistry, 2006

Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry, 2007

Martin Chalfie, Chemistry, 2008

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Chemistry, 2009

Brian K. Kobilka, Chemistry,2012

Robert J. Lefkowitz, Chemistry, 2012

Michael Levitt, Chemistry, 2013

Arieh Warshel, Chemistry, 2013

Martin Karplus, Chemistry, 2013

William E. Moerner, Chemistry, 2014

Tomas Lindahl, Chemistry, 2015

Paul L. Modrich, Chemistry, 2015

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Chemistry, 2016

Jacques Dubochet, Chemistry, 2017

Joachim Frank, Chemistry, 2017

Richard Henderson, Chemistry, 2017

Sir Gregory P. Winter, Chemistry, 2018

M. Stanley Whittingham, Chemistry, 2019

Emmanuelle Charpentier, Chemistry, 2020

David W.C. MacMillan, Chemistry, 2021

Economics

Joseph Stiglitz, Economic, 2001

Daniel Kahneman, Economics, 2002

Finn E. Kydland, Economics, 2004

Edmund S. Phelps, Economics, 2006

Eric S. Maskin, Economics, 2007

Daniel L. McFadden, Economics, 2000

Christopher A. Pissarides, Economics, 2010

Alvin E. Roth, Economics, 2012

Sir Angus S. Deaton, Economics, 2015

Sir Oliver Hart, Economics, 2016

Paul R. Milgrom, Economics, 2020

Douglas W. Diamond, Economics, 2022

Literature

Wole Soyinka, Literature, 1986

J. M. Coetzee, Literature, 2003

Elfriede Jelinek, Literature, 2004

Orhan Pamuk, Literature, 2006

Herta Muller, Literature, 2009

Patrick Modiano, Literature, 2014

Medicine

David Baltimore, Medicine, 1975

Hamilton O. Smith, Medicine, 1978

Werner Arber, Medicine, 1978

Torsten N. Wiesel, Medicine, 1981

Harold E. Varmus, Medicine, 1989

Erwin Neher, Medicine, 1991

Sir Richard J. Roberts, Medicine, 1993

Eric F. Wieschaus, Medicine, 1995

Peter C. Doherty, Medicine, 1996

Louis J. Ignarro, Medicine, 1998

Tim Hunt, Medicine, 2001

H. Robert Horvitz, Medicine, 2002

Barry J. Marshall, Medicine, 2005

Craig C. Mello, Medicine, 2006

Mario R. Capecchi, Medicine,2007

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Medicine, 2008

Jack W. Szostak, Medicine, 2009

Jules A. Hoffmann, Medicine, 2011

Randy W. Schekman, Medicine, 2013

Thomas C. Sudhof, Medicine, 2013

Edvard Moser, Medicine, 2014

May-Britt Moser, Medicine, 2014

Jeffrey Connor Hall, Medicine, 2017

Michael Rosbash, Medicine, 2017

William G. Kaelin Jr.,  Medicine,  2019

Gregg L. Semenza, Medicine, 2019

Harvey J. Alter, Medicine, 2020

Sir Michael Houghton, Medicine, 2020

Charles M. Rice, Medicine, 2020

Physics

Robert Woodrow Wilson, Physics, 1978

Sheldon Glashow, Physics, 1979

Jerome I. Friedman, Physics, 1990

Steven Chu, Physics, 1997

William D. Phillips, Physics, 1997

Daniel C. Tsui, Physics, 1998

Horst Ludwig Störmer, Physics, 1998

Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics, 2001

 Carl E. Wieman, Physics, 2001

 Anthony J. Leggett, Physics, 2003

 David J. Gross, Physics, 2004

 H. David Politzer, Physics, 2004

 John C. Mather, Physics, 2006

 Konstantin Novoselov, Physics, 2010

 Andre Geim, Physics, 2010

 Brian P. Schmidt, Physics, 2011

 David J. Wineland, Physics, 2012

 Hiroshi Amano, Physics, 2014

 Takaaki Kajita, Physics, 2015

 Barry Clark Barish, Physics, 2017

 Kip Stephen Thorne, Physics, 2017

 Donna Strickland, Physics, 2018

 Michel Mayor, Physics, 2019

 Roger Penrose, Physics, 2020

 Giorgio Parisi, Physics, 2021

 Ferenc Krausz, Physics, 2023

Elected Officials, Business, and Civil Society Leaders

Professor Lord Victor Adebowale, CBE House of Lords UK

Enzo Amendola, Member of Italian Parliament and Former Minister of EU Affairs

Jacques Attali, Founder and First President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Yann Arthus Bertrand, Photographer

Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway 1997-2000, 2001-2005, Deputy Prime Minister 1985-1986, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1989-1990

Bono, Musician and Activist

Ouided Bouchamaoui, Tunisian Peace Activist

Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group

Sharan Burrow, Former General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation

Jean-Marc Borello,  Founder & President of the Executive Board, Groupe SOS

Agnès Callamard, Secretary General, Amnesty International

Kathy Calvin, Former President and CEO, UN Foundation

James Chau, Global Health Advocate

Aseem Chauhan Chairman, Amity Group

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former U.S. Secretary of State

Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and UNDP Administrator; member of The Elders

Lily Cole, Actress & Activist

Richard Curtis, UN SDG Advocate

Nishith Desai, International Legal and Tax Expert

Hugh Evans, Co-Founder, Global Citizen

Sam Daley-Harris, Founder, RESULTS and Civic Courage

Matt Damon, Co-Founder, water.org

Cyril Dion, Movie Director

Abigail E. Disney, Filmmaker, Activist, Philanthropist

Sandrine Dixon-Decleve, Co-President of the Club of Rome

Bill Drayton, Chair, Get America Working!, Former Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President Emerita, Children’s Defense Fund 

Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria 2008-2016

Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Renée Fleming, Soprano, Arts and Health Advocate

Vicente Fox, Former President of Mexico

Walter Fust, Director-General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation 1993-2008

Peter Gabriel, Musician

Ron Garan, Former NASA Astronaut

Kul Gautam, Former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary General of the UN

Don Gips, CEO, Skoll Foundation

Hafez Ghanem, Economist

Pamela Gillies, Former Vice Chancellor and Professor Emerita, Glasgow Caledonian University

Justice Richard Goldstone, South African Former Judge and Former Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace

Tarja Halonen, President of Finland 2000-2012

Michael Hastings, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris

Martin Hirsch, Former French High Commissioner to Active Solidarity against Poverty

Eckart von Hirschhausen, TV presenter and Medicine Doctor

Peter Holbrook, CEO, Social Enterprise UK 

Peter Holmes a Court, Founder, Afrika.house

Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive Global

Mo Ibrahim, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist

Mladen Ivanic, President of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014-2018

Renato Janine, Former Minister of Education, Brazil

Hina Jilani

David Jones, Co-Founder, One Young World

Ivo Josipovic, President of Croatia 2010-2015

Ted Kennedy Jr.

Peter C. Goldmark, Jr., Former CEO, Rockefeller Foundation and International Herald Tribune

Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Baroness Helena Kennedy, KC Member of the House of Lords UK

Tirana Hassan, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

John Hewko, CEO, Rotary International

Shekhar Kapur, Actor

Joseph Kenner, President and CEO, Greyston

Vinod Khosla, Venture Capitalist

Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary General of the United Nations

Csaba Korosi, 77th President of the UN General Assembly

Zlatko Lagumdizja, Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2001-2002, deputy Prime Minister 1993-1996, 2012-2015

Guilherme Leal, Co-Founder, Natura Cosmeticos, B Team Leader

Annie Lennox, Singer, Songwriter, and Activist

Mark Leonard, CEO, European Council on Foreign Relations

Yves Leterme, Prime Minister of Belgium 2008, 2009-2011

Arthur Levitt, Former Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Stefan Lofven, Former Prime Minister of Sweden

Eugene A. Ludwig, Founder and CEO, Promontory Financial Group; Former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency

Paul Maritz, Former CEO of VMWare

Hiro Mizuno, UN Special Envoy on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments

Maria Mendiluce, CEO, “We mean Business”

Michael Moller, Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

Michael Moskow, Former President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Rovshan Muradov, Secretary General, Nizami Ganjavi International Center

Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys

Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO, Acumen

Father Francesco Occhetta, President of Pontifical Foundation Fratelli tutti

Jean Oelwang, Founding CEO and President, Virgin United

Emma Bonino, Italian Politician, former Minister of Foreign Affairs 2013 – 2014. Former Member of the European Parliament

Dr. Michael Otto, Chairman of the Supervisory Board Otto Group

Borut Pahor, President of Slovenia 2012-2022, Prime Minister 2008-2012

Michel Pebereau, Current President of BNP Paribas Foundation,  Former President and General Director of BNP Paribas

Milica Pejanovic, Minister of Defense of Montenegro 2012-2016

Eloic Peyrache, Dean and General Director, HEC Paris

Rosen Plevneliev, President of Bulgaria 2012-2017

Paul Polman, Business Leader

Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC, Former UK Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary

Donald Riegle, Former U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan; Former Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development

Kate Robertson, Co-Founder, One Young World

Mary Robinson, Former Prime Minister of Ireland

Anya Schiffrin, Senior Lecturer

Ellen Seidman, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute

Ismail Serageldin, Co-Chair, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Vice President of the World Bank 1992-2000

Michael Sheldrick, Co-Founder, Global Citizen

Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Brazil

Renee Fleming, Singer

Yeardley Smith, Actress

Erna Solberg, Former Prime Minister of Norway

Sharon Stone, Mother

Petar Stoyanov, President of Bulgaria 1997-2002

Dr. David Suzuki, Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia

Eka Tkeshelashvili, Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia 2010-2012, Minister of Foreign Affairs 2008

Melanne S. Verveer, Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown University

HE Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Co-Chair Nizami Ganjavi International Center, President of Latvia 1999-2007

Filip Vujanovic, President of Montenegro 2003-2018

Jimmy Wales, Co-Founder and Internet Entrepreneur, Wikipedia

Forest Whitaker, UN SDG Advocate

Gary White, Co-Founder, water.org

Timothy Wirth, Vice Chairman, UN Foundation; Former U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado

Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine 2005-2010

Kateryna Yushchenko, First Lady of Ukraine 2005-2010

Valdis Zatlers, President of Latvia 2007-2011

Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico; Member of The Elders

Jochen Zeitz, Founder, Zeitz Foundation; Co-Founder, The B Team

Nicola Zingaretti,  Member of Italian Parliament and former Majority Leader