Bangladeshi Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) appears in a court in Dhaka on January 1, 2024 | Photo Credit: AFPNobel peace laureate, Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated. Hasina has made several scathing verbal attacks against the internationally respected 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival. Yunus and three colleagues from Grameen Telecom, one of the firms he founded, were accused of violating labour laws when they failed to create a workers’ welfare fund in the company. “I have been punished for a crime that I haven’t committed,” Yunus told reporters after the hearing. Amnesty International accused the government of “weaponising labour laws” when Yunus went to trial in September and called for an immediate end to his “harassment.”Criminal proceedings against Yunus were “a form of political retaliation for his work and dissent,” it said.

Source: Punch January 01, 2024 17:59 UTC