More Support from Senator Durbin and Leading Human Rights Organizations

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

As noted in our previous post, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin and three colleagues recently released a strong statement of support for Professor Yunus. Senator Durbin recently demonstrated his steadfast commitment to justice for Professor Yunus by following the joint statement with a powerful speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Durbin called out the Bangladeshi government for levying fraudulent charges against Professor Yunus. He concluded his speech by saying, “Quite simply, what is happening to Professor Muhammad Yunus is a travesty that will seriously harm our [nation’s] relationship with Bangladesh. It must stop immediately. Enough.” A video of Durbin’s remarks on the floor is available here. His speech was covered in the Bangladesh media, including in The Daily Star.

Support for Professor Yunus from the human rights community also continues to grow. The CIVICUS Global Civil Society Alliance and the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) called on the Bangladeshi authorities to immediately end the ongoing judicial harassment of Muhammad Yunus. Their statement included these powerful words, “The judicial harassment of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus seems to be vindictive and politically motivated and highlights the systematic targeting of civil society and critics by the Sheikh Hasina regime. The authorities must halt this abuse of the judicial system to persecute Yunus and end this travesty of justice.”

This statement comes after strong support from other human rights organizations such as The Clooney Foundation for Justice, Amnesty International and RFK Human Rights. (The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch was one of the signers of a January open letter to the Prime Minister demanding that she end the persecution of Professor Yunus.)

New coverage of Yunus’ persecution has just come out in Voice of America. The article quotes a courageous expert in Dhaka speaking about the reasons for the mistreatment and the likelihood of a fair trial under current conditions. It reads, “Rights activists and supporters fear that the government might imprison Yunus as part of the legal and political battle against him. Dhaka-based political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman expressed concerns about imprisonment driven by ‘vengeance’ from Hasina.”

Rahman is further quoted as saying, “Given the state of the law and justice system in the country, Dr. Yunus will not receive fair treatment.”

In happier news, the June edition of the Olympic Review highlighted Professor Yunus’ significant contributions to the Paris games on pages 16, 18 and 20. Once again, we are left with the question of why a man of such vision, accomplishment, and influence would be harassed and persecuted by his own government, rather than be celebrated as the national treasure he is.

Another Strong Statement by U.S. Senators in Support of Professor Yunus, and More Nonsense from the Prime Minister

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

This past week, in advance of the latest hearing related to Professor Yunus’ bogus conviction on labor law violations and his efforts to extend his bail as the appeals process plays out, Senator Richard Durbin and three other prominent U.S. Senators released a strong statement in support of Professor Yunus. (Bail was in fact extended until August 14, as reported here.)

The statement was part of a press release that included these words, “The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have noted irregularities in proceedings against Professor Yunus… The United States values its longstanding relationship with Bangladesh, however, a failure to end this seemingly personal vendetta against Muhammad Yunus will negatively impact that partnership.  We again call for the immediate end to the harassment of Professor Yunus and urge the government to respect democratic values and institutions.”

The statement was released on Twitter/X and other social media platforms. It was covered in the Bangladeshi press, including in the Daily Star, the most widely read English language daily newspaper.  This follows earlier statements by Senator Durbin, including this one in January.

Perhaps stung by this criticism, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unleashed a new string of lies in a recent public event, claiming against all evidence that Professor Yunus was not the founder of the Grameen Bank and that he lobbied then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to successfully urge the World Bank to cancel its funding for building the Padma Bridge. The mountain of historical evidence that Professor Yunus did establish the Grameen Bank is too large to even start to compile. We won’t attempt to dignify the PM’s claim with a formal refutation.

In the case of the World Bank funding, the Bank itself issued a clear statement in 2012 clarifying that the funding was canceled due to corruption in Sheikh Hasina’s government and her unwillingness to address it. The statement included, “The World Bank has credible evidence corroborated by a variety of sources which points to a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials, SNC Lavalin executives, and private individuals in connection with the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project… In light of the inadequate response by the Government of Bangladesh [to address the corruption], the World Bank has decided to cancel its $1.2 billion IDA credit in support of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge project, effective immediately.” Perhaps the government’s Anti-Corruption Commission should study this episode and drop its meritless case against Professor Yunus.

Liars and Their Lies, Continued: The Case of Nayeemul Islam Khan

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

When your position is indefensible, there are basically two options: concede, or lie. As we wrote earlier, apologists for the Prime Minister have consistently taken the second option. For example, they claimed that the Washington Post ad in support of Professor Yunus placed almost exactly one year ago cost $2 million when public documents prove that it could have cost no more than $84,000. (In fact, it cost much less than at, as we explained in this blog post.)

Now, Nayeemul Islam Khan, one of the Prime Minister’s top attack dogs, claims without a shred of evidence that most of the Nobel laureates who signed the open letter to the PM about her persecution of Professor Yunus did so unwittingly. On a television program, he claimed that they were sent messages that said unless they responded otherwise, their names would be added to the letter. This is absolutely false. Those of us who waited anxiously to hear who agreed to sign and who did not, this absurd charge is somewhere between infuriating and laughable.

Mr. Khan, let us ask you this: If we added scores of Nobel laureates without their permission, wouldn’t at least one of them publicly disassociated themselves from the effort and have asked that their names be removed? Of course. But not a single one has. While you are at it, Mr. Khan, please produce one of those messages to a Nobel laureate that told them that their name would be added unless to responded otherwise — just one, please!

And how do you explain the fact that the Protect Yunus Campaign added names of Nobel laureates and other global leaders after the original publication of the letters? If we included everyone who didn’t decline to sign in the original letter, there would be no one to add later on. In fact, we only added people who agreed to sign, and those who agreed after publication of the letter were added after that fact.

If the government and its allies won’t stop persecuting Professor Yunus, perhaps they can at least agree to stop lying about their efforts to do so.

Professor Yunus Remains Free After His Bail Is Extended to April

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

To say the least, the last few weeks have been busy for Professor Yunus, his colleagues, the Protect Yunus Campaign, and our many allies. On March 3, Professor Yunus appeared in person at 2 different court hearings.  First, he went before the Labor Tribunal related to his appeal of the verdict rendered against him on January 1, and secondly, before the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) related to its separate investigation of him. In both cases, he was given bail until April 16. The date of the next ACC hearing is April 2, the date of the next Labor Tribunal hearing is April 16.  Also present in the courtroom on March 3 were representatives from the European Union, the United States, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, and Norway showing support for Professor Yunus.

Prior to the March 3 trial, there were 2 noteworthy statements of support from internationally recognized figures.  One was this 2-minute-long video statement from British business magnate Richard Branson.  Additionally, a statement by Ban Ki-moon, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, on behalf of The Elders, included these words: “Muhammad Yunus is a visionary leader who should be honoured by his country’s leaders, not subject to unjust persecution.”

These demonstrations of support were augmented by the release of an important report by The Clooney Foundation for Justice which was highly critical of the Bangladesh government’s treatment of Professor Yunus. The press release accompanying the report stated, “Based on its review of the proceedings, there are significant grounds for finding that the case against Professor Yunus constitutes an abuse of process, the report said, and it urges the Labour Appellate Tribunal to overturn the conviction for alleged violations of the country’s labour law.” The Clooney Foundation plans to continue to stay involved and will analyze the Anti-Corruption Commission Court case as well.

Professor Yunus continues to gather support both in Bangladesh and internationally by telling his story by speaking with media outlets. 2 of the interviews that have been done in Bengali are Deutsche Welle Bangla and BBC Bangla.  He also sat down with Christiane Amanpour of CNN for a widely viewed interview. Additionally, he was interviewed by Fred de Sam Lazaro for the series, Agents for Change on PBS, which had a lot of helpful context as to why this case is constitutes of violation of the victims’ human rights. His interview with Die Zeit Online was also seen around the world.  Additionally, The World of Three Zero’s documentary was released early by the filmmakers due to this unthinkable treatment of this 83-year-old Nobel Laureate.

Support from global leaders and concerned citizens around the world continues to make a huge difference in keeping Professor Yunus free and able to do his vitally important work. More acts of solidarity will be needed since he only received a brief reprieve on March 3.

Bangladeshi Experts Respond to Two Common Government Critiques of the Calls for Justice for Prof. Yunus

Posted on by Protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus

Two Mondays ago, 12 U.S. Senators from both major political parties called for justice for Professor Muhammad Yunus in a strongly worded letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Last Monday, 247 global leaders including 127 Nobel laureates wrote their own letter demanding that the persecution stop and proposing a pathway to independently examining the meritless charges against Dr. Yunus.

The responses from the Bangladeshi government have centered on two critiques of the letters.

The first was that the Bangladeshi legal system is independent from politics and is trustworthy, therefore arguing that the “political vendettas” referred to in the Senators’ letter were no factor in the January 1 verdict against Professor Yunus and his three co-defendants.

The second was that the labor law case was brought against Professor Yunus by aggrieved employees of Grameen Telecom, rather than by the government. In that case, the government’s only role was to let the judicial process take its course between two private parties.

Let us examine these in turn, drawing not on the analysis of foreigners, but rather on those of respected experts in Bangladesh.

On the first point, let’s listen to Professor Rehman Sobhan, one of the leading public intellectuals in Bangladesh’s history, the founder of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, and the former Director General of the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies. He wrote a compelling analysis of the legal harassment of Professor Yunus in the Dhaka Tribune and the Daily Star, which was also picked up in India.

Titled “For Whom the Bell Tolls?”, it demolishes the idea that the labor law case against Professor Yunus has any merit. He cites the degradation of the state’s competence and independence under the current Prime Minister as the only reason the case could have proceeded so far. He writes bitingly, “The [labor law] case of Professor Yunus is symptomatic of this erosion in the credibility of our institutions [in Bangladesh]. The triviality and narrowness of the case against Yunus would not have made it to first base in any well-functioning judicial system.” Please read his depressing yet highly cogent critique of the argument that the conviction is trustworthy because of the supposed independence and competence of the Bangladeshi legal system.

Now let us turn to the idea that the litigants in the labor law case are Grameen Telecom’s employees and Grameen Telecom’s 4 convicted board members. (We will ignore for the moment that even if it were true that the employees were a party to the case, the defendant should be the company itself–not 4 of its board members–and that it should be a civil rather than criminal case, according to Bangladeshi law.) In response to the claim that the employees brought the case, Shayan S. Khan, the editor of the venerable Dhaka Courier—a highly respected, 40-year-old weekly newsmagazine in Bangladesh—updated an earlier article and wrote forcefully that the true litigants were the Bangladesh government on the one hand, and Grameen Telecom and its board members on the other.

In his article, titled “So Who Filed the Case Against Professor Yunus?”, he concludes the following after his painstakingly researched and reported analysis: “Yet, as far as the workers’ involvement in the government’s case goes, we have seen enough to conclude that not only did they not file the case, but they hardly played any part in it at all.”

But one thing is sure: the government will continue to repeat these debunked claims in the days ahead, just as they have argued that some unnamed lobbying firm spent $2 million to place a pro-Yunus ad in the Washington Post last March (a claim that was proven false here).

Yet with people like Professor Sobhan and Shayan Khan reporting the truth, we at the Protect Yunus Campaign are confident that the Bangladeshi people will see through these lies and understand what is actually happening: a travesty of justice.

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.