DHAKA: Forty global figures, including Ban Ki-moon, Hillary Clinton and Bono published a joint letter on Wednesday calling on Bangladesh to stop “unfair” attacks and harassment against Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.
Yunus is credited with rescuing millions from poverty with his pioneering microcredit bank, but he has fallen out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has said he “sucks blood” from the poor.
The anti-graft watchdog ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into Yunus’ seats last year and Hasina has personally attacked him, blaming him for the World Bank’s withdrawal from a bridge project mired in corruption allegations.
The letter signed by former UN chief Ban, former US Secretary of State Clinton, U2 singer Bono, former US Vice President Al Gore and others said they had “deep concerns” about Yunus’s “well-being” and ability to focus on his work.
“It is…painful to see Prof. Yunus, a man of impeccable integrity, and his life’s work unfairly attacked and repeatedly harassed and investigated by your government,” they said in the letter, also published in the Washington Post newspaper was published.
There was no immediate comment from the government. Bangladesh’s state-led anti-corruption commission is finalizing its investigations into Yunus and his social enterprises.
Yunus is credited with rescuing millions from poverty with his pioneering microcredit bank, but he has fallen out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has said he “sucks blood” from the poor.
The anti-graft watchdog ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into Yunus’ seats last year and Hasina has personally attacked him, blaming him for the World Bank’s withdrawal from a bridge project mired in corruption allegations.
The letter signed by former UN chief Ban, former US Secretary of State Clinton, U2 singer Bono, former US Vice President Al Gore and others said they had “deep concerns” about Yunus’s “well-being” and ability to focus on his work.
“It is…painful to see Prof. Yunus, a man of impeccable integrity, and his life’s work unfairly attacked and repeatedly harassed and investigated by your government,” they said in the letter, also published in the Washington Post newspaper was published.
There was no immediate comment from the government. Bangladesh’s state-led anti-corruption commission is finalizing its investigations into Yunus and his social enterprises.
