Professor Yunus’ current trip to Central Asia and Europe has been cathartic and productive. At each stop, he has been greeted with all manner of public and private expressions of solidarity, thunderous applause, long standing ovations, and global leaders lining up to have their pictures taken with him.
Most impressively, he was awarded the Tree of Peace Award at the Global Baku Forum just a few days ago, which received coverage around the world including in Bangladesh. The forum’s theme this year was “healing a fractured world.” While in Baku, Professor Yunus also inaugurated the office of the Yunus Social Business Centre at the Azerbaijan State Economic University. For more about this trip, check out the Yunus Centre Facebook page.
Especially since the meritless verdict against him was announced on January 1, people of all walks of life have been seeking ways to express their support for him while at the same time rebuking the Bangladesh government for their mistreatment of him.
Quite a few times during working meetings and conference panels held on this trip, leaders have raised the issue of his persecution even as Professor Yunus urged that the focus be on other matters related to addressing his passions: achieving zero poverty, zero unemployment, zero wealth concentration, and zero net carbon emissions. But people sensed the profound loss that the possibility of Professor Yunus being unjustly imprisoned would be to the global effort to reach those critical goals. So they showed their passionate support for him and asked others to do so.
At the Protect Yunus Campaign, we appreciate all of these expressions of support – for Professor Yunus, for his co-defendants who have done so much to advance his work and ideas, and for others in Bangladesh who have suffered human rights abuses and other forms of persecution. Justice shall prevail if we all work together for it.