Bangladeshi Nobel laureate gets jail term for labor law violation

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - A labor court in Bangladesh sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and three of his colleagues to six months in prison on Monday for violating the country’s labor laws.

Sheikh Merina Sultana, head of the Third Labor Court of Dhaka, delivered the verdict, which also fined Yunus 30,000 takas ($272).

Yunus said he would appeal the decision.

“I have been punished for a sin I did not commit. If you want to call it justice, you can,” he told reporters.

The 83-year-old chairman of Grameen Telecom, a nonprofit company, has been embroiled in a longstanding row with the government

He is battling at least 168 cases, including alleged tax evasion and misappropriation of profits.

He and his colleagues were granted bail after their lawyers filed petitions. The court gave them 30 days to appeal the verdict and sentence.

The court took evidence in the case filed by government labor officials between August and November last year. Yunus's lawyers, however, alleged that the case's proceedings were completed in a hurry, unlike others in the court.

Earlier, 40 world leaders and Nobel laureates had written a letter to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over her government’s treatment of Yunus, saying he had been unfairly attacked and repeatedly harassed and investigated and calling on it to end such practices. The government, however, termed the letter part of a conspiracy.

Yunus, a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. The loans are given to entrepreneurs who are too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

He lost a legal battle with the government when he was removed from the post of managing director in 2011 in a row over his retirement age.

Calling the courts a government tool to prosecute opposition voices, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, the spokesman for the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, condemned the verdict.

He said it is a reflection of the revenge of the government.