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Published : 01 Jan 2024, 02:41 PM
A court in Dhaka has sentenced Nobel prize-winning microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus, the chairman of Grameen Telecom, and three other company executives to six months in prison for breaching labour laws of Bangladesh.
Judge Sheikh Marina Sultana of the Dhaka Third Labour Court delivered the verdict in the case on Monday.
The three other suspects in the case are Grameen Telecom Managing Director Ashraful Hasan and directors Nurjahan Begum and Md Shahjahan.
The court fined them Tk 5,000 under Section 303 (3) of the Labour Act. Failure to pay the fine will be punished with another 10 days in prison.
They were also fined an additional Tk 25,000 under Section 307 of the same law. Failure to pay this fine will lead to them spending another 15 days in jail.
But Yunus, 83, the founding Grameen Bank managing director, and the three others will not start serving time in prison anytime soon, as the court granted them one month's bail on condition that they use the time to launch an appeal against the ruling.
Yunus co-shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 with the Grameen Bank - a first for Bangladesh.
On Sept 9, 2021, Yunus and three others were named in a case filed against Grameen Communications with a labour court by Labour Inspector Arifuzzaman of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments.
They were accused of failing to provide employees with appointment letters, get work schedules approved by the authorities, and submit annual and half-yearly returns.
In the 84-page verdict, the judge found the charges against the accused were proven. The court found them guilty of failing to deliver appointment letters to 101 employees, not paying employees during public holidays, and not submitting the fixed dividends to the Labour Welfare Foundation.
Barrister Abdullah Al Mamun, representing the defence, said in his immediate reaction to the verdict that they had not received justice and will challenge the decision with a higher court.
A heavy police presence was in the Bijoynagar area for the labour court’s verdict.
Many media workers were present at the scene, including representatives from the BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle and other international news agencies.
Photographer Shahidul Alam, women’s rights activist Farida Akhter, Dhaka University teacher Asif Nazrul and lawyer Sara Hossain, among others, were present.
Yunus arrived at the court around 1:43pm and the verdict was delivered around 2pm. Barrister Al Mamun then petitioned for bail.
The court concluded the hearing of the arguments from both sides on Dec 24 and set Jan 1 for the verdict.
‘MISTAKES’
At the hearing on Nov 9, Yunus defended himself in court, saying he did not “commit any crime”.
Responding to a question, he said: “I’m not the owner of this organisation. My idealistic programme had no flaws.”
“Some mistakes might happen while doing such a huge task. We are not angels. But if something wrong happened, it was not intentional.”
In a written statement that day, the defendants said Yunus forged more than 50 social organisations, including Grameen Bank, in the country, and he owned no shares himself in any of those companies. So, he does not get any share of the profits these organisations make.
Yunus constructed business models for whichever social issues related to poverty, education and health in the country, according to the statement.
“He [Yunus] spent a lot of time behind such business ideas and models but never engaged in proprietorship in any of it. He does not even have land, houses or cars under his name in this country or abroad,” it added.
The defence challenged authorities to name one other person or organisation with “the impact” Yunus had created and “human resources” he pooled together.
The statement also referred to the Company Act to elaborate on why the case was not valid and pleaded for the acquittal of the defendants.
