Global Leaders Renew Call for Justice for Professor Yunus

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad 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

Twelve U.S. Senators Call for the Ending the Harassment of Professor Yunus

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

Following on an August letter signed by 190 global leaders, including 108 Nobel laureates, demanding that the Bangladesh Prime Minister end her campaign violating the human and legal rights of Professor Yunus, 12 prominent U.S. Senators from both major parties wrote their own critical letter to the PM today, which was sent with an accompanying press release.

They wrote, “We write urging you to end to the persistent harassment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus—and the pattern of abusing laws and the justice system to target critics of the government more broadly.” And they added that Professor Yunus’ positive “efforts should not be undermined over ongoing political vendettas, especially in a democratic nation of laws.”

They concluded by saying, “Ending the harassment of Professor Yunus, and others exercising their freedom of speech to criticize the government, will help continue this important relationship [between the United States and Bangladesh].”

Interestingly, the Senators did not congratulate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on her recent uncontested and disputed “re-election,” implying that they did not recognize it as legitimate.

This comes one day after the highly respected Professor Rehman Sobhan — who was once appointed as the chairman of Grameen Bank by the Prime Minister when she was in power in the 1990s — wrote a highly critical article in the Daily Star and the Dhaka Tribune warning Bangladesh’s citizens that they have much to fear from their own government if such a flawed legal case against Professor Yunus could proceed as far as it has. He lamented, “Over the years the weaponization of the judicial system has become part of a wider assault on our institutions of democracy and governance…. The case of Professor Yunus is symptomatic of this erosion in the credibility of our institutions. The triviality and narrowness of the case against Yunus would not have made it to first base in any well functioning judicial system.” 

The entire text of the U.S. Senate letter appears below:

January 22, 2024

Dear Prime Minister Hasina,

We write urging you to end the persistent harassment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus—and the pattern of abusing laws and the justice system to target critics of the government more broadly.

For more than a decade, Professor Yunus has faced more than 150 unsubstantiated cases brought against him in Bangladesh. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have noted irregularities in proceedings against him, including the most recent six month prison sentencing for allegedly violating the country’s labor laws that is being appealed. These reputable organizations argue the speed and repeated use of criminal proceedings are indicative of politically motivated judicial abuses. Moreover, the repeated and sustained harassment of Yunus mirrors what many Bangladeshi civil society members also face in an increasingly restrictive environment.

Yunus’ pioneering work on microfinance offered greater economic promise for many Bangladeshis and millions of impoverished people around the world. The United States Congress awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal in 2013, recognizing his pioneering contributions to the fight against global poverty. Such efforts should not be undermined over ongoing political vendettas, especially in a democratic nation of laws.

The United States values its longstanding relationship with Bangladesh, which includes close bilateral and multilateral coordination on numerous common interests. Ending the harassment of Professor Yunus, and others exercising their freedom of speech to criticize the government, will help continue this important relationship.

Thank you for your prompt consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Richard Durbin, U.S. Senator

Todd Young, U.S. Senator

Tim Kaine, U.S. Senator

Dan Sullivan, U.S. Senator

Jeff Merkley, U.S. Senator

Edward Markey, U.S. Senator

Jeanne, Shaheen, U.S. Senator

Peter Welch, U.S. Senator

Sherrod Brown, U.S. Senator

Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator

Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator

Cory A. Booker, U.S. Senator

An Immediate Call to Reverse the Unjust Conviction of Professor Muhammad Yunus

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

Professor Muhammad Yunus, the 83-year-old recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and a pioneer of microfinance, is one of the great moral leaders and social innovators of our era. His work has materially benefited millions of Bangladeshis and others around the world, and he has inspired a generation of young people to pursue the social business model he has developed and other forms of advancing the common good.

His work and his example of selfless service to humanity should be lauded and embraced by people, organizations, and governments. Unfortunately, the Bangladeshi government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been engaged in sustained persecution of Professor Yunus since 2010. This outrageous campaign has culminated in an unjust verdict against Professor Yunus and three other board members of Grameen Telecom, a nonprofit organization he established. The verdict was announced on January 1, 2024, in Dhaka, the nation’s capital. The jail sentence was based on convictions passed down by a corrupt and biased legal system – in contravention of both the rule of law and the defendants’ human rights.

On January 1, 2024, Professor Yunus and three colleagues were convicted of labor law violations  and sentenced to six-months in jail and given one month bail to allow for appeals, following allegations of breaches of the Bangladesh Labor Act 2006 by Grameen Telecom relating to the classification of employees, annual leave entitlement, and employee profit-sharing.

Irene Khan, former chief of Amnesty International now working as a United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, who was present at Monday’s verdict, said the conviction was “a travesty of justice… A social activist and Nobel laureate who brought honour and pride to the country is being persecuted on frivolous grounds,” she said.

“As my lawyers have convincingly argued in court, this verdict against me is contrary to all legal precedent and logic,” Professor Yunus said in a statement released after the verdict.

“I call for the Bangladeshi people to speak in one voice against injustice and in favour of democracy and human rights for each and every one of our citizens.”

Discussing the verdict, one of his lawyers, Abdullah Al Mamun, said, “It was an unprecedent judgement. No due legal process was followed in the case and it was rushed through.”

Mr. Mamun added, “The whole idea is to damage his international reputation. We are appealing against this verdict.”

In August 2023, 189 global leaders including 108 Nobel laureates objected to his unjust treatment in an open letter to the Prime Minister. Among the signers were Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, and former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Their letter began, “We write to you as Nobel Prize laureates, elected officials, and business and civil society leaders, and as friends of Bangladesh. We admire how your nation has made laudable progress since its independence in 1971.

“However, we are deeply concerned by the threats to democracy and human rights that we have observed in Bangladesh recently,” the letter continued. “We believe that it is of the utmost importance that the upcoming national election be free and fair, and that the administration of the election be acceptable to all major parties in the country. The previous two national elections lacked legitimacy.”

“One of the threats to human rights that concerns us in the present context is the case of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. We are alarmed that he has recently been targeted by what we believe to be continuous judicial harassment. This letter attempts to build upon an earlier appeal to you by 40 global leaders who were concerned about his safety and freedom.”

The leaders are similarly outraged by Professor Yunus’ conviction, and will be making their voices heard about it in the days ahead.

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, one of the 189 signatories, said, “A leader like Muhammad Yunus should be celebrated and free to contribute to improving the lives of people and the planet. The last place he should be is in prison. I call for an immediate reversal of this unjust verdict.”

The international human rights community has also weighed in on this matter. In September 2023 Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard wrote this in a widely circulated statement: “Muhammad Yunus’s case is emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh…. The abuse of laws and misuse of the justice system to settle vendettas is inconsistent and incompatible with international human rights treaties…. It is time for the Government to put an end to this travesty of justice.”

An international law firm undertook a high-level review of the case that eventually led to Professor Yunus’ prison sentence. On the basis of that analysis, the Protect Yunus Campaign has concluded that Professor Yunus is facing up to six months in prison for a crime that he not only did not commit, but that legally does not exist.

The Protect Yunus Campaign, a network of people and organizations that has been established to ensure that Professor Yunus is safe and able to pursue his noble work, calls on the government of Bangladesh to immediately reverse this unjust verdict. This case—one of 199 that have been filed against him in one of the most egregious cases of judicial harassment in the country’s history—should, at worst, have led to a US$227 fine against Grameen Telecom, where Professor Yunus serves as non-executive chairman, an unsalaried position.

Instead, not only were the allegations entirely without merit, but the legal process that was followed was wrong in law. Professor Yunus was pursued criminally alongside his fellow defendants, when the Bangladesh Labor Act of 2006 only creates civil liability for alleged breaches of it. The route the case took, from the initial investigation to its subsequent passage through various layers of the Bangladeshi court system, has been inappropriate, and is clear evidence of the Bangladeshi authorities and judiciary’s sanctioning of the persecution of Professor Yunus. Supporters of Professor Yunus have seen judges who have initially challenged the prosecution fall in line with the state’s narrative. A miscarriage of justice has clearly occurred. (See the article “A Travesty of Justice, Guaranteed” for more background on the baseless nature of this case.)

Professor Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank and numerous other Social Business enterprises, lives a modest lifestyle in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He serves most of his companies as Chairman of the board without any financial compensation. As a matter of principle, he owns no property, assets, or shares in any company. Most of the money that he has earned through giving speeches and the sales of his books has been transferred to a charitable trust formed under Bangladeshi law. He is one of only seven people in history to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Protect Yunus Campaign calls on the Bangladeshi government to immediately cease all forms of harassment against Professor Yunus, including initiating and supporting frivolous lawsuits against him, accusing him of working against the interests of the nation he has served since its independence in 1971, smearing his name by making baseless claims about him, and conducting repeated audits of his personal finances that have turned up no improprieties. All of the other cases pending against him, including one by the so-called Anti-Corruption Commission, should either be dismissed or put on hold pending reviews by independent legal experts with the participation of internationally reputed lawyers.

During any time Professor Yunus and his colleagues spend in prison, they should be treated humanely with full access to their physicians, lawyers, and family.

Furthermore, the Bangladesh government should immediately cease all forms of its ongoing assaults on the country’s democracy, on human rights, and on freedom of the press.  

Those wishing to learn more about the persecution of Professor Yunus should visit the campaign’s website at https://protectyunus.wordpress.com, which includes a call to action outlining what concerned citizens can do. A detailed history of his persecution can be found here: https://protectyunus.wpcomstaging.com/background/

For more information contact: Sam Daley-Harris at sam@civiccourage.org.

Responding to the PM’s Attacks on the U.S., the Media, and Professor Yunus

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, launched a new series of unhinged attacks while speaking before Parliament and on national television a few days back.  Her focus was on the United States, the Bengali language daily newspaper Protham Alo, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

She also spoke of a “global recession” despite the fact that the world economy grew by 3.4% in 2022 and is projected to grow by 2.9% in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund.  (A recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.)  Perhaps she should check in with her economists more often.

We will leave it to the PM to explain the wisdom of attacking the United States on the eve of her hapless Foreign Minister’s meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.  The State Department’s official report on the meeting on April 10 contained these words of warning despite typical diplomatic understatement: “Secretary Blinken expressed concerns about violence against and intimidation of the media and civil society, including under the Digital Security Act. He underscored that free and fair elections and respect for human rights in Bangladesh are critical…”

As part of her broadside against the United States, the Prime Minister decried the expulsion of two state representatives in Tennessee.  She failed to note that rather than being thrown in jail or criticized by their head of government, as these two critics of the state might have been in Bangladesh, the lawmakers were widely celebrated in the media, received supportive calls from the nation’s president and vice-president, and were on their way to being reelected to their positions.  It’s impressive what checks and balances can do when they are in place!  Sadly, due to years of democratic backsliding, Bangladesh has few checks on the Prime Minister’s power these days. 

Sheikh Hasina then attacked a respected newspaper, Protham Alo, drawing from the same tired authoritarian playbook she has been using for years to stifle dissent.  The newspaper’s well-researched articles, a few of which indirectly criticized the government by quoting citizens talking about the hardships they were experiencing, led her to call it “the enemy of the Awami League, democracy, and the people” of Bangladesh.  She further claimed, without evidence, that the newspaper “never wanted stability in the country” and that when a military-backed government took power in 2007, “they were very happy.”

Finally, she criticized Professor Yunus for having run a bank that charges interest—despite the fact that Grameen Bank’s interest rate is among the lowest in the world for microcredit institutions, and despite the fact that the bank has not reversed its sensible policies under new leadership.  She further fulminated about Professor Yunus’ personal earnings, which have in fact been entirely invested in Bangladesh and have all been scrupulously reported to the government.  (Since the government has been auditing his personal finances for more more than a decade, one would think they would have already published any issues they had discovered, even small ones.  But they remain silent, except for calling for new reports to review.) 

In fact, Professor Yunus has not only brought all of his own income, mostly from speaking fees and book sales, into Bangladesh through legal channels, but he has also attracted millions of dollars of investment into Bangladeshi social businesses where the investors forsake any rights to repatriate their profits outside of Bangladesh. 

Furthermore, all of the social businesses he has helped start in other countries have, without exception, been financed by socially-minded investors outside of Bangladesh, and certainly not by Professor Yunus himself.  (Again, if the government had even a shred of proof that he had invested his earnings outside of Bangladesh, it certainly would have produced that evidence by now.)  The success of those initiatives, such as Grameen America, has created additional goodwill for the people of Bangladesh and for their creativity and industriousness.  Professor Yunus owns no shares in any of these businesses, whether domestic or foreign.  Clearly, the government does not know what to make of his laudable honesty and integrity.  Instead, it further embarrasses itself before the international community.