Bangladesh Sentences Nobel Peace Prize Winner To 6 Months In Prison

(Bloomberg) -- A Dhaka court sentenced Muhammad Yunus — who won the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microloans to some of Bangladesh’s poorest — to 6 months in jail for labor law violations.

A labor inspector had found that employees of Grameen Telecom, of which Yunus, 83, is chairman, were denied benefits including leave and welfare deposits. He has denied the allegations.

“We’re being punished for something we haven’t done,” Yunus said after the verdict. “That’s our fate and that’s the fate of our nation.” 

Judge Sheikh Marina Sultana granted Yunus and three other officials of Grameen Telecom bail for one month, allowing them to appeal the sentencing in the High Court. Yunus’s lawyer Abdullah Al Mamun said he will appeal the verdict.

Grameen Telecom, a non-profit organization, owns 34.2% of Bangladesh’s largest telecom carrier Grameenphone, a unit of Norway’s Telenor ASA.

This is one of about 150 cases filed against Yunus after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League came to power in 2008, according to Amnesty International. The case is “emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh, where the authorities have eroded freedoms and bulldozed critics into submission,” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty, said in September.

Hasina has publicly attacked Yunus on many occasions. In 2011, she accused him of “sucking blood from the poor.” In 2022, she alleged that he tried to block World Bank funding of the Padma bridge project. Yunus has denied any role in freezing funds for the bridge project.

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