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01/01/2024

Bangladeshi court sentences Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to 6 months in prison

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A Bangladeshi court has sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to six months in prison over labour law violations, escalating what his supporters call a vendetta by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government against the microfinance pioneer.

A labour court in Dhaka on Monday convicted Yunus and three other executives in a case from 2021 over allegations including improper contracts and non-payment of benefits to workers at Grameen Telecom, which Yunus founded in the 1990s. Yunus and the three others, who deny the allegations, were granted a month’s bail during which time they plan to appeal, according to their legal team.

Yunus’s allies have alleged that the case — one of almost 200 that they say he and affiliated organisations are facing — is part of a campaign by Bangladeshi authorities to vilify the 83-year-old, one of the country’s most high-profile figures and a bitter and longtime rival of Sheikh Hasina.

The verdict came only days before Bangladesh’s general election in which Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power continuously since 2009, will seek a historic fifth term in office following what critics say is a systematic campaign to sideline opponents and silence dissent.

In the build-up to the vote on Sunday, police have arrested thousands of members of the main opposition party, which has now dropped out of the electoral race.

In a statement, Yunus called Monday’s verdict “contrary to all legal precedent and logic”.

“I will continue to serve the people of Bangladesh and the social business movement to the best of my ability,” he added. “I call for the Bangladeshi people to speak in one voice against injustice and in favour of democracy and human rights for each and every one of our citizens.”

31/12/2023

Court Fights Over Redistricting Draw Cries of Partisanship

The battle for control of the House of Representatives and state legislatures next year may well come down not to who does the campaigning. It's more about who's doing the drawing.

Nearly four years after the 2020 Census and the ensuing redistricting of state legislative and congressional districts, court battles over district lines are still waging. In the case of the House, the new and still-disputed lines have an impact on as many as 13 congressional districts – more than half of the 25 seats the nonpartisan Cook Political Report considers toss-ups next year and more than double the five seats Democrats would need to flip to regain control of the chamber.

And while past fights over gerrymandered districts have been largely contained to state legislators, the current battles have drawn in the courts as well, leading to charges of partisan bias by members of the judicial branch.

In Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia, congressional and some state legislative lines are being redrawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits the deliberate disenfranchisement of minority voters through gerrymandering. Florida and South Carolina may also join that list, depending on the outcome of litigation.

In New York, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the states' courts have become major players in the partisan redistricting fights. And since in all three cases the rulings have changed as the makeup of the courts has changed, political players are claiming that the jurists are tipping the scales in their ideological favor.

"It's the height of absurdity to say that the chaos that is being engendered by this decision is something that's desired by the public," says former GOP Rep. John Faso of New York, complaining about a recent state court of appeals ruling that is widely expected to result in a Democratic-drawn map for congressional districts.

New York's redistricting saga goes back to 2022, when a bipartisan redistricting commission – created by a state constitutional amendment – deadlocked, sending the task to the Democratic-controlled state legislature.

Democrats drew a map to their favor, and Republicans sued, successfully forcing a new map drawn by a special master. That competitive map allowed the GOP to pick up four congressional seats in deep-blue New York that year.

Democratic-backed groups sued again, to return the process to the redistricting commission. This time, the court of appeals – with a new, more liberal chief justice – ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Any map the commission creates must be approved by the Democratic-run legislature, and if the commission is again deadlocked – as is widely expected – the legislature gets to draw its own map.

The new map could net Democrats as many as six seats next year, analysts predict.

"The fix was in," Faso says.

In Wisconsin, meanwhile, Republicans had won a series of court battles that ended up with a map for state legislative seats that critics said was egregiously gerrymandered, including districts that were not contiguous. But the state Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, would not order new lines drawn.

08/10/2022

Achievements of PM in India visit

The Prime Minister also mentioned the notable achievements of her visit to India: distribution of Kushiara River water, bringing down border killings to zero, inaugurating the historic 'Independence Road' up to the Bangladesh-India border. more

08/10/2022

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