Court Correspondent

The letter of 12 US senators on Nobel Laureate economist and Grameen Telecom Chairman Dr Muhammad Yunus has been rejected with hatred, said lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan.

"The statements of the senators are absurd and unreasonable. It is also similar to the interference in the independent judiciary of Bangladesh," Khurshid Alam Khan, the lawyer of Directorate of Inspection of Factories and Establishments, said.

Some 12 members of the United States Senate have written a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, urging her to end the 'persistent harassment' of Dr Muhammad Yunus and 'abuse of laws and justice system to target critics.'

"I requested them to read the judgment of the labor court, analyze it and then make a statement. Commenting without reading or listening, is directly interfering with the judiciary. Though, we do not care. What a senator of any country said, we don't put them on," he added.

The senators are Majority Whip and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin, Todd Young, Tim Kaine, Dan Sullivan, Jeffrey A Merkley, Edward J Markey, Jeanne Shaheen, Peter Welch, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ron Wyden, and Cory A Booker.

The letter was published on Monday (22 January).

"For more than a decade, Professor Yunus has faced more than 150 unsubstantiated cases brought against him in Bangladesh," the senators said.

The senators wrote that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have noted irregularities in proceedings against Yunus, including the most recent six-month prison sentence for allegedly violating the country's labour laws that is being appealed.