Dhaka – Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus became convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried with the aid of his supporters as politically encouraged.
Yunus, eighty three, is credited with lifting hundreds of thousands out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance financial institution however has earned the enmity of longtime high Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the bad.
Hasina has made several scathing verbal assaults in opposition to the the world over respected 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival.
Yunus and 3 colleagues from Grameen Telecom, one of the corporations he founded, were accused of violating labour laws when they didn’t create a workers’ welfare fund inside the company.
A labour court docket inside the capital Dhaka convicted and sentenced them to “six months’ easy imprisonment”, lead prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan advised AFP, adding that all 4 had been right now granted bail pending appeals.
All four deny the costs. Dozens of people staged a small demonstration of help outdoor the court for Yunus, who left without speaking to media. “This verdict is unparalleled,” Abdullah Al Mamun, a legal professional for Yunus, informed AFP. “We did not get justice.”
Yunus is going through more than one hundred other charges over labour law violations and alleged graft. He instructed reporters after one of the hearings ultimate month that he had not profited from any of the greater than 50 social commercial enterprise corporations he had set up in Bangladesh.
“They have been no longer for my personal gain,” Yunus stated. another of his attorneys, Khaja Tanvir, told AFP that the case became “meritless, false and sick-influenced”. “the only purpose of the case is to harass and humiliate him in front of the arena,” he said.
‘Travesty of justice’
Irene Khan, a former Amnesty chief now operating as a UN special rapporteur who turned into gift at Monday’s verdict, instructed AFP the conviction became “a travesty of justice”.
“A social activist and Nobel laureate who introduced honour and pleasure to the us of a is being persecuted on frivolous grounds,” she said.
In August, a hundred and sixty worldwide figures, consisting of former US president Barack Obama and ex-UN secretary-widespread Ban Ki-moon, published a joint letter denouncing “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus.
The signatories, inclusive of more than one hundred of his fellow Nobel laureates, stated they feared for “his protection and freedom”.
Critics accuse Bangladeshi courts of rubber-stamping decisions made by means of Hasina’s authorities, that’s all but positive to win some other term in energy next week at elections boycotted by the opposition.
Her management has been increasingly more firm in its crackdown on political dissent, and Yunus’s recognition most of the Bangladeshi public has for years earmarked him as a capability rival.
Amnesty international accused the government of “weaponizing labour laws” whilst Yunus went to trial in September and known as for a direct stop to his “harassment”.
crook court cases towards Yunus have been “a form of political retaliation for his work and dissent”, it stated.
