A labor court in Bangladesh’s capital on Monday sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to six months in jail for contravening the nation’s labor laws.
Yunus, who pioneered the use of microcredit to help impoverished people, was present in court and was granted bail. The court gave Yunus 30 days to appeal the verdict and sentence.
Grameen Telecom, which Yunus founded as a non-profit organization, is at the center of the case.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Sheikh Merina Sultana, head of the Third Labor Court of Dhaka, said in her verdict that Yunus’ company contravened Bangladeshi labor laws. She said at least 67 Grameen Telecom workers were supposed to be made permanent employees, but were not, and a “welfare fund” to support the staff in cases of emergency or special needs was never set up.
She also said that, following company policy, 5 percent of Grameen’s dividends were supposed to be distributed to staff, but they were not.
Sultana found Yunus, as chairman of the company, and three other company directors guilty, sentencing each to six months in jail. Yunus was also fined 30,000 takas (US$273).
Yunus said that he would appeal.
“We are being punished for a crime we did not commit. It was my fate, the nation’s fate. We have accepted this verdict, but will appeal this verdict and continue fighting against this sentence,” the 83-year-old economist told reporters after the verdict was announced.
A defense lawyer criticized the ruling, saying it was unfair and against the law.
“We have been deprived of justice,” attorney Abdullah al-Mamun said.
However, the prosecution was happy with what it said was an expected verdict.
“We think business owners will now be more cautious about violating labor laws. No one is above the law,” prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan said.
Grameen Telecom owns 34.2 percent of the nation’s largest mobile phone company, Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom Telenor.
As Yunus is known to have close connections with political elites in the West, especially in the US, many think the verdict could negatively impact Dhaka’s relationship with Washington, but Bangladeshi Minister of Foreign Affairs Masud bin Momen on Monday said that relations between the two nations would likely not be affected by an issue involving a single individual.
The Nobel laureate faces an array of other charges involving alleged corruption and embezzlement.
Yunus’ supporters believe he is being harassed because of frosty relations with Bangldeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The Bangladeshi government has denied the allegation.
Monday’s verdict came as Bangladesh prepares for a general election on Sunday, amid a boycott by the nation’s main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia.
The party said it did not have any confidence the administration would hold a free and fair election.
More than 170 global leaders and Nobel laureates in an open letter in August last year urged Hasina to suspend all legal proceedings against Yunus.
The leaders, including former US president Barack Obama, former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and more than 100 Nobel laureates, said in the letter that they were deeply concerned by recent threats to democracy and human rights in Bangladesh.
Hasina responded sharply and said she would welcome international experts and lawyers to visit Bangladesh to assess the legal proceedings and examine documents involving the charges.
In 1983, Yunus founded Grameen Bank, which gives small loans to entrepreneurs who would not normally qualify for bank loans. The bank’s success in lifting people out of poverty led to similar microfinancing efforts in other nations.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS