242 Global leaders raised concern over judicial harassment of Dr Yunus and branded as “travesty of justice”
“..expressed concern over the recent election on January 7, was tarnished by the suppression and imprisonment of opposition leaders“
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29; Some 242 global leaders including more than 125 Nobel Laureates expressed their alarm over the “continuous judicial harassment and potential jailing” of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus in a third open letter to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “We agree with Irene Khan,” the letter continued, “the United Nations special rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who left the court room after the jail verdict was delivered and called it “a travesty of justice.”
On January 1, 2024, Professor Yunus and three Grameen Telecom colleagues were convicted of labor law violations, sentenced to six months in jail, and given bail while appeals are considered. In their letter, the leaders noted with concern “….the rushed legal process, and lack of consistency with regard to how Bangladesh’s laws are applied. The criminal verdict included time in prison for four individuals including Professor Yunus…when it is clear that, at most, only a small civil fine against Grameen Telecom, a nonprofit organization, was warranted under the relevant laws.”
After the verdict, human rights organization Amnesty International condemned the conviction, stating: “Amnesty International believes that initiating criminal proceedings against Muhammad Yunus and his colleagues for issues that belong to the civil and administrative arena is a blatant abuse of labor laws and the justice system, and a form of political retaliation for his work and dissent.”
In their letter, the leaders, including Barack Obama, 44th President of the U.S., expressed concern “….that the recent election in Bangladesh held on January 7, 2024, was tarnished by the suppression and imprisonment of opposition leaders, the media, and independent voices, which have been extensively documented by many human rights and other pro-democracy groups in Bangladesh and abroad.”
“Bangladeshis deserve a government that honors and supports—rather than persecutes—its most esteemed citizens,” said former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon after the verdict. “I call on the Prime Minister to stop this senseless campaign against Professor Muhammad Yunus now.”
Looking for resolution, the leaders accepted an invitation made by Sheikh Hasina, who told a news conference at the end of August 2023 that the “signers should send experts, including lawyers, to go through all the documents of Professor Yunus and his cases to see if there is any wrongdoing or wrongful prosecution.” “We accept your invitation,” the leaders wrote. “This examination should include not only the labor law case whose verdict was delivered on January 1, but also the investigation being conducted by the Anti-Corruption Commission.”
Professor Yunus’ conviction is the culmination of years of persecution by the government. This is one of more than 150 cases that have been filed against him, in the most egregious example of judicial harassment in the country’s history.
“A social activist and Nobel laureate,” Irene Khan warned, “who brought honor and pride to the country is being persecuted on frivolous grounds.”
“Muhammad Yunus’s case is emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard in September 2023. “The abuse of laws and misuse of the justice system to settle vendettas is inconsistent and incompatible with international human rights treaties.” Callamard is a signatory to this latest letter, as is Tirana Hassan, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.
This letter follows ones sent in March and August 2023. Sam Daley-Harris, the founder of Civic Courage, urged concerned citizens to respond to this call to action.
The following Nobel Lauretes signed the petion :
Nobel Laureates for Peace:
Barack H. Obama, Peace, 2009
Jose Ramos-Horta, Peace, 1996
Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Peace, 1976
Oscar Arias Sanchez, Peace, 1987
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Peace, 1996
Jody Williams, Peace, 1997
Shirin Ebadi, Peace, 2003
Mohamed ElBaradei, Peace, 2005
Albert Arnold Gore Jr., Peace, 2007
Leymah Roberta Gbowee, Peace, 2011
Tawakkol Karman, Peace, 2011
Juan Manuel Santos, Peace, 2016
Denis Mukwege, Peace, 2018
Nadia Murad, Peace, 2018
Dmitry Muratov, Peace, 2021
Maria Ressa, Peace, 2021
Chemistry
Walter Gilbert, Chemistry, 1980
Roald Hoffmann, Chemistry, 1981
John C. Polanyi, Chemistry, 1986
Yuan T. Lee, Chemistry, 1986
Jean-Marie Lehn, Chemistry, 1987
Robert Huber, Chemistry, 1988
Hartmut Michel, Chemistry, 1988
Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988
Thomas R. Cech, Chemistry, 1989
Sir John E. Walker, Chemistry, 1997
Ryoji Noyori, Chemistry, 2001
Kurt Wuthrich, Chemistry, 2002
Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003
Aaron Ciechanover, Chemistry, 2004
Avram Hershko, Chemistry, 2004
Richard R. Schrock, Chemistry, 2005
Roger D. Kornberg, Chemistry, 2006
Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry, 2007
Martin Chalfie, Chemistry, 2008
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Chemistry, 2009
Brian K. Kobilka, Chemistry,2012
Robert J. Lefkowitz, Chemistry, 2012
Michael Levitt, Chemistry, 2013
Arieh Warshel, Chemistry, 2013
Martin Karplus, Chemistry, 2013
William E. Moerner, Chemistry, 2014
Tomas Lindahl, Chemistry, 2015
Paul L. Modrich, Chemistry, 2015
Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Chemistry, 2016
Jacques Dubochet, Chemistry, 2017
Joachim Frank, Chemistry, 2017
Richard Henderson, Chemistry, 2017
Sir Gregory P. Winter, Chemistry, 2018
M. Stanley Whittingham, Chemistry, 2019
Emmanuelle Charpentier, Chemistry, 2020
David W.C. MacMillan, Chemistry, 2021
Economics
Joseph Stiglitz, Economic, 2001
Daniel Kahneman, Economics, 2002
Finn E. Kydland, Economics, 2004
Edmund S. Phelps, Economics, 2006
Eric S. Maskin, Economics, 2007
Daniel L. McFadden, Economics, 2000
Christopher A. Pissarides, Economics, 2010
Alvin E. Roth, Economics, 2012
Sir Angus S. Deaton, Economics, 2015
Sir Oliver Hart, Economics, 2016
Paul R. Milgrom, Economics, 2020
Douglas W. Diamond, Economics, 2022
Literature
Wole Soyinka, Literature, 1986
J. M. Coetzee, Literature, 2003
Elfriede Jelinek, Literature, 2004
Orhan Pamuk, Literature, 2006
Herta Muller, Literature, 2009
Patrick Modiano, Literature, 2014
Medicine
David Baltimore, Medicine, 1975
Hamilton O. Smith, Medicine, 1978
Werner Arber, Medicine, 1978
Torsten N. Wiesel, Medicine, 1981
Harold E. Varmus, Medicine, 1989
Erwin Neher, Medicine, 1991
Sir Richard J. Roberts, Medicine, 1993
Eric F. Wieschaus, Medicine, 1995
Peter C. Doherty, Medicine, 1996
Louis J. Ignarro, Medicine, 1998
Tim Hunt, Medicine, 2001
H. Robert Horvitz, Medicine, 2002
Barry J. Marshall, Medicine, 2005
Craig C. Mello, Medicine, 2006
Mario R. Capecchi, Medicine,2007
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Medicine, 2008
Jack W. Szostak, Medicine, 2009
Jules A. Hoffmann, Medicine, 2011
Randy W. Schekman, Medicine, 2013
Thomas C. Sudhof, Medicine, 2013
Edvard Moser, Medicine, 2014
May-Britt Moser, Medicine, 2014
Jeffrey Connor Hall, Medicine, 2017
Michael Rosbash, Medicine, 2017
William G. Kaelin Jr., Medicine, 2019
Gregg L. Semenza, Medicine, 2019
Harvey J. Alter, Medicine, 2020
Sir Michael Houghton, Medicine, 2020
Charles M. Rice, Medicine, 2020
Physics
Robert Woodrow Wilson, Physics, 1978
Sheldon Glashow, Physics, 1979
Jerome I. Friedman, Physics, 1990
Steven Chu, Physics, 1997
William D. Phillips, Physics, 1997
Daniel C. Tsui, Physics, 1998
Horst Ludwig Störmer, Physics, 1998
Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics, 2001
Carl E. Wieman, Physics, 2001
Anthony J. Leggett, Physics, 2003
David J. Gross, Physics, 2004
H. David Politzer, Physics, 2004
John C. Mather, Physics, 2006
Konstantin Novoselov, Physics, 2010
Andre Geim, Physics, 2010
Brian P. Schmidt, Physics, 2011
David J. Wineland, Physics, 2012
Hiroshi Amano, Physics, 2014
Takaaki Kajita, Physics, 2015
Barry Clark Barish, Physics, 2017
Kip Stephen Thorne, Physics, 2017
Donna Strickland, Physics, 2018
Michel Mayor, Physics, 2019
Roger Penrose, Physics, 2020
Giorgio Parisi, Physics, 2021
Ferenc Krausz, Physics, 2023
Elected Officials, Business, and Civil Society Leaders
Professor Lord Victor Adebowale, CBE House of Lords UK
Enzo Amendola, Member of Italian Parliament and Former Minister of EU Affairs
Jacques Attali, Founder and First President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Yann Arthus Bertrand, Photographer
Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway 1997-2000, 2001-2005, Deputy Prime Minister 1985-1986, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1989-1990
Bono, Musician and Activist
Ouided Bouchamaoui, Tunisian Peace Activist
Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group
Sharan Burrow, Former General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation
Jean-Marc Borello, Founder & President of the Executive Board, Groupe SOS
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General, Amnesty International
Kathy Calvin, Former President and CEO, UN Foundation
James Chau, Global Health Advocate
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former U.S. Secretary of State
Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and UNDP Administrator; member of The Elders
Lily Cole, Actress & Activist
Richard Curtis, UN SDG Advocate
Nishith Desai, International Legal and Tax Expert
Hugh Evans, Co-Founder, Global Citizen
Sam Daley-Harris, Founder, RESULTS and Civic Courage
Matt Damon, Co-Founder, water.org
Cyril Dion, Movie Director
Abigail E. Disney, Filmmaker, Activist, Philanthropist
Sandrine Dixon-Decleve, Co-President of the Club of Rome
Bill Drayton, Chair, Get America Working!, Former Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President Emerita, Children’s Defense Fund
Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria 2008-2016
Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Vicente Fox, Former President of Mexico
Walter Fust, Director-General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation 1993-2008
Peter Gabriel, Musician
Ron Garan, Former NASA Astronaut
Kul Gautam, Former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary General of the UN
Don Gips, CEO, Skoll Foundation
Hafez Ghanem, Economist
Pamela Gillies, Former Vice Chancellor and Professor Emerita, Glasgow Caledonian University
Justice Richard Goldstone, South African Former Judge and Former Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace
Tarja Halonen, President of Finland 2000-2012
Michael Hastings, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris
Martin Hirsch, Former French High Commissioner to Active Solidarity against Poverty
Eckart von Hirschhausen, TV presenter and Medicine Doctor
Peter Holbrook, CEO, Social Enterprise UK
Peter Holmes a Court, Founder, Afrika.house
Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive Global
Mo Ibrahim, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
Mladen Ivanic, President of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014-2018
Renato Janine, Former Minister of Education, Brazil
Hina Jilani
David Jones, Co-Founder, One Young World
Ivo Josipovic, President of Croatia 2010-2015
Ted Kennedy Jr.
Peter C. Goldmark, Jr., Former CEO, Rockefeller Foundation and International Herald Tribune
Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Baroness Helena Kennedy, KC Member of the House of Lords UK
Tirana Hassan, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
John Hewko, CEO, Rotary International
Shekhar Kapur, Actor
Joseph Kenner, President and CEO, Greyston
Vinod Khosla, Venture Capitalist
Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary General of the United Nations
Csaba Korosi, 77th President of the UN General Assembly
Zlatko Lagumdizja, Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2001-2002, deputy Prime Minister 1993-1996, 2012-2015
Guilherme Leal, Co-Founder, Natura Cosmeticos, B Team Leader
Annie Lennox, Singer, Songwriter, and Activist
Mark Leonard, CEO, European Council on Foreign Relations
Yves Leterme, Prime Minister of Belgium 2008, 2009-2011
Arthur Levitt, Former Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Stefan Lofven, Former Prime Minister of Sweden
Eugene A. Ludwig, Founder and CEO, Promontory Financial Group; Former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency
Paul Maritz, Former CEO of VMWare
Hiro Mizuno, UN Special Envoy on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments
Maria Mendiluce, CEO, “We mean Business”
Michael Moller, Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
Michael Moskow, Former President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Rovshan Muradov, Secretary General, Nizami Ganjavi International Center
Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys
Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO, Acumen
Father Francesco Occhetta, President of Pontifical Foundation Fratelli tutti
Jean Oelwang, Founding CEO and President, Virgin United
Emma Bonino, Italian Politician, former Minister of Foreign Affairs 2013 – 2014. Former Member of the European Parliament
Dr. Michael Otto, Chairman of the Supervisory Board Otto Group
Borut Pahor, President of Slovenia 2012-2022, Prime Minister 2008-2012
Michel Pebereau, Current President of BNP Paribas Foundation, Former President and General Director of BNP Paribas
Milica Pejanovic, Minister of Defense of Montenegro 2012-2016
Eloic Peyrache, Dean and General Director, HEC Paris
Rosen Plevneliev, President of Bulgaria 2012-2017
Paul Polman, Business Leader
Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC, Former UK Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary
Donald Riegle, Former U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan; Former Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development
Kate Robertson, Co-Founder, One Young World
Mary Robinson, Former Prime Minister of Ireland
Anya Schiffrin, Senior Lecturer
Ellen Seidman, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute
Ismail Serageldin, Co-Chair, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Vice President of the World Bank 1992-2000
Michael Sheldrick, Co-Founder, Global Citizen
Renee Fleming, Singer
Yeardley Smith, Actress
Erna Solberg, Former Prime Minister of Norway
Sharon Stone, Mother
Petar Stoyanov, President of Bulgaria 1997-2002
Dr. David Suzuki, Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia
Eka Tkeshelashvili, Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia 2010-2012, Minister of Foreign Affairs 2008
Melanne S. Verveer, Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown University
HE Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Co-Chair Nizami Ganjavi International Center, President of Latvia 1999-2007
Filip Vujanovic, President of Montenegro 2003-2018
Jimmy Wales, Co-Founder and Internet Entrepreneur, Wikipedia
Forest Whitaker, UN SDG Advocate
Gary White, Co-Founder, water.org
Timothy Wirth, Vice Chairman, UN Foundation; Former U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado
Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine 2005-2010
Kateryna Yushchenko, First Lady of Ukraine 2005-2010
Valdis Zatlers, President of Latvia 2007-2011
Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico; Member of The Elders
Jochen Zeitz, Founder, Zeitz Foundation; Co-Founder, The B Team Nicola Zingaretti, Member of Italian Parliament and former Majority Leader
