The heckling of former interim government chief adviser Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Muhammad Yunus by activists of the banned Awami League at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday has drawn widespread condemnation from political leaders and civil society figures in Bangladesh, with renewed calls for the party to face trial.
A video circulating on Facebook shows Yunus seated in a wheelchair, accompanied by an associate, when two or three men approach him. One of them, wearing a black jacket and sunglasses, appears to lead the confrontation.
Fact-checking initiative Bangla Fact identified him as Emdad Chowdhury, general secretary of the New York Metropolitan Awami League. Another man was identified as Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, general secretary of the US unit of the Jubo League.
The Bangladesh government has strongly condemned the alleged harassment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former interim government Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus by activists of the banned Awami League at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York, pledging legal and administrative action against those involved.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that Bangladesh’s mission in New York had been instructed to raise the matter with local law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrators and pursue appropriate legal action.
“It appears that a group of perpetrators suspected to be linked to the banned political outfit, Bangladesh Awami League, were behind this harassment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, who is highly respected by the international community, on foreign soil,” the ministry said in a statement.
It added that the government wanted those responsible for tarnishing the image of Bangladesh and its citizens before the international community to face appropriate legal consequences.
Prime Minister’s Adviser Dr Zahed Ur Rahman told a Secretariat press briefing that Awami League supporters abroad should know attempts to harass or intimidate others would not go unchallenged.
He said legal proceedings had been initiated over the harassment of actress Azmeri Haque Badhon in Italy, and that similar action would follow over the Yunus incident.
Jamaat blames Hasina
Leader of the Opposition and Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman held ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina responsible.
In a Facebook post, he said the “defeated and fugitive fascist” was inciting her followers to commit terrorist acts even in the United States, and that the blame for the misconduct with Yunus lay with her.
He urged the government to take swift and proper action, and ended his post with the word “Shame.”
Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Dr Syed Abdullah Muhammed Taher called the incident “unacceptable and highly condemnable.”
He said that by humiliating a Nobel laureate respected worldwide, the perpetrators had insulted all Bangladeshis and the country itself before the international community.
Ousted Awami League activists, he said, continued to conspire against Bangladesh from abroad and endanger the security of expatriates and patriotic citizens travelling overseas.
He urged Bangladesh’s embassies and high commissions to take “responsible and courageous steps.”
NCP, Students against Discrimination demand trial
The National Citizen Party (NCP) called the incident “an act of anti-state terrorism” and demanded that the fugitive Awami League and Jubo League leaders involved be brought to justice and that the party be tried as a political entity.
Unable to operate in Bangladesh after the mass uprising, it said, the Awami League had repeatedly intimidated distinguished citizens abroad.
“Through this incident, the ousted and fugitive Awami League has once again demonstrated that reconciliation with the party is impossible,” the statement said.
NCP Secretary Akhter Hossen said the fugitives involved “must be brought to justice and given exemplary punishment.”
Students Against Discrimination, an organisation linked to the July Uprising, urged the government to take exemplary legal action against the activists. Human rights activist Nabila Idris, a former member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, wrote: “The trial of the Awami League as a political party must begin.”
AB Party: criticism is fine, harassment is not Amar Bangladesh Party (AB Party) Chairman Mojibur Rahman Monju and General Secretary Asaduzzaman Fuad said everyone has the right to criticise Yunus’s policies or role, but humiliating and harassing a respected citizen on foreign soil is unacceptable, and slogans cannot declare anyone guilty.
They said personal attacks could not conceal the Awami League’s responsibility for the July-August killings, enforced disappearances, voter disenfranchisement and the destruction of democracy, and that the party had revealed its “fascist mindset” once again.
They called for speedy trials of fascist-era crimes, the start of the party’s trial for its role in the killings, an impartial investigation of the JFK incident regardless of the suspects’ political identity, and diplomatic steps to protect expatriates’ safety and dignity.
Commentators weigh in
Former interim government adviser Asif Nazrul called the incident an expression of a deeply troubling mindset.
“A man sitting alone in a wheel chair. You suddenly walk up to him, shout ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’ at him, and somehow imagine that his dignity and honour have been taken away! What a ridiculous sense of self-satisfaction!” he wrote on Facebook.
He added that the hecklers could not imagine how widely Yunus is respected, noting he was honoured at a joint sitting of India’s two parliamentary houses, and asked: “What happens when you throw a brick at the sun?”
Poet and writer S M Rezaul Karim Monu offered a different reading, saying the incident should show Yunus there is no way forward without engaging in politics.
“Yunus needs to understand that he was never an innocent caretaker,” he wrote, calling him a political force against “fascist Bengali nationalists” and anti-democratic forces on both left and right. “Even at his age, his duty is not over,” he added.