Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.
The 83-year-old, known as the “banker to the poorest of the poor”, was awarded the Peace Prize in 2006 for his work loaning small cash sums to rural women, allowing them to invest in farm tools or business equipment and boost their earnings.
Grameen Bank, the microfinance lender he founded, was lauded for helping unleash breakneck economic growth in Bangladesh, and its work has since been copied by scores of developing countries.
“Human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty,” Yunus said during his Nobel lecture, daring his audience to imagine a world where deprivation was confined to history museums.
But his public profile in Bangladesh has earned him the hostility of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who once accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.
Hasina has made several scathing verbal attacks against the internationally respected 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival.
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