Dr Yunus ‘victim of judicial harassment’, won’t sign statement: Deputy attorney general

Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Muhammad Yunus is a respected person, and his honour is being disregarded, thinks deputy attorney general Emran Ahmed Bhuiyan.

“I think Dr Muhammad Yunus is a respected person. His honour is being disregarded and this is judicial harassment,” he said.

Emran Ahmed Bhuiyan was talking to newspersons in front of the annexed building of the High Court on Monday.

A total of 160 world leaders, including former US state secretary Hillary Clinton and UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon, wrote to prime minister Sheikh Hasina, expressing concern for initiating a case against Dr Muhammad Yunus filed for breach of labour law and graft charges and demanding suspension of the trial.

The letter was published on the website of Chicago-based Cision PR Newswire on 28 August.

Signatures of Supreme Court lawyers are being collected protesting the letter written by reputed citizens of different countries to prime minister Sheikh Hasina demanding suspension of the trial against Dr Muhammad Yunus.

Deputy attorney general Emran Ahmed Bhuiyan told the newspersons that over 107 Nobel laureates, former president of the US, secretary of state and many others issued a statement in favour of Dr Yunus saying that he has recently been targeted by what they believe to be continuous judicial harassment.

Claiming that countering the open letter a statement will be issued from the office of attorney general, the state’s law officer said, “A notice has been issued to all the people who work at the office of attorney general to sign the statement. I have decided that I won’t sign the statement.”

Asked, Emran Ahmed Bhuiyan said, “I agree with the statement of over hundred people including former US president Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.”

Several law officers from the office of the attorney general, however, said general lawyers are collecting the signatures from Sunday protesting at the open letter. One of the copies has been sent to the office of the attorney general. Many have signed on it while some did not. But none has been directed from the office of the attorney general to sign the statement, they said.

Attorney general AM Amin Uddin was outside of Dhaka. Speaking to Prothom Alo over mobile phone, he said in the afternoon that no directive has been given from his office to sign the statement against Dr Yunus.