FM on Dr Yunus: Washington Post published ad, not news

Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Tuesday said that what had appeared in the Washington Post on Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus was an advertisement, not a news report.

It had been done by a lobbyist firm, he said while replying to a question after a meeting at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka.

Some 14 non-resident ambassadors and heads of missions of Bangladesh posted in Delhi met the foreign minister.

More than 241 global leaders, including 125 Nobel laureates, expressed their concern about the “continuous judicial harassment and potential jailing” of Dr Yunus in a third open letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

On January 1, Dr Yunus and three of his Grameen Telecom colleagues were convicted of labour law violations, sentenced to six months in jail and given bail while their appeals were considered.

They later secured bail from the High Court.

Dr Yunus said the case against him had been filed by the government, a claim the foreign minister rejected by saying that Dr Yunus was not correct.

The foreign minister on Tuesday said: "Washington Post published it as an advertisement. It has been done before by the lobbyists."

He said the judicial system of Bangladesh was very transparent, and because of that many people from the government party faced trial and even had to go to jail.

"The government is not a party in Yunus's case, it is the workers who were deprived, who filed the case against him," he said.

The non-resident ambassadors came to Bangladesh to congratulate the new government.

They also visited Bangabandhu's mausoleum in Tungipara on Monday.

In the meeting with them, the foreign minister sought cooperation for the repatriation of Rohingyas.

Envoys of Cambodia, Hungary, Gambia, Chech Republic, Jamaica, Luxembourg, Botswana, Mongolia, Peru, Slovenia, Uruguay, Venezuela and North Macedonia were present at the meeting.