Bangladeshi protesters want Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead government | Politics News

Leading organizers of student protests in Bangladesh have said Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus should head an interim government after longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country.

Nahid Islam, a 26-year-old sociology student who led the protest movement against public office quotas that turned into a nationwide uprising against the administration, said in a video post on social media that Yunus had consented to take power.

“We want to see the process happening in the morning,” Islam said on Monday night. “We urge the president to take steps as quickly as possible to form an interim government led by Dr. Yunus.”

Protest organizers were scheduled to meet army officials on Tuesday, the army said in a statement.

Islam said students would not accept an army-led government.

“We gave our blood, we were martyred and we must fulfill our promise to build a new Bangladesh,” he said.

“No government other than the one proposed by the students will be accepted. As we said, no military government, or a government supported by the military, or a government of fascists, will be accepted.”

Yunus, 84, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 after pioneering microcredit. Known as the “banker of the poor”, he faced corruption charges in Bangladesh and was put on trial during Hasina’s government, but he said the charges against him were politically motivated.

A spokesman for Yunus said he accepted the students’ request to be an adviser to the interim government, Reuters news agency reported. The Nobel laureate would return to Bangladesh “immediately” after a minor medical procedure in Paris, the spokesman said.

Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury said calm appeared to have been largely restored in the capital on Tuesday, as the Students Against Discrimination movement called for calm despite some lingering tensions.

Chowdhury said the movement would present more names on Tuesday morning and that its “main demand” was clearly framed as non-negotiable. “Unless these names are accepted, students will be able to leave again,” he said.

After Hasina’s removal on Monday, army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said he was temporarily taking control of the country as soldiers tried to quell growing unrest.

He said he held talks with leaders of the main political parties – excluding Hasina’s long-ruled Awami League – and announced that an interim government would rule Bangladesh.

He also promised to investigate the deaths of at least 135 people in Bangladesh since mid-July, in one of the country’s worst bloodshed since the 1971 war of independence. “Keep faith in the military. We will investigate all murders and punish those responsible,” he said.

Mohammed Shahabuddin, the country’s president, announced that the interim government would hold new elections as soon as possible.

He said it was “unanimously decided” to immediately release opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairwoman and Hasina foe Begum Khaleda Zia, who was convicted in a corruption case in 2018 but transferred to a hospital a year ago. later because his health worsened. . She denied the allegations against her.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said Bangladesh’s transition of power must be “in line with the country’s international obligations” and “inclusive and open to the meaningful participation of all Bangladeshis.”

The protests began peacefully last month when frustrated students demanded an end to a quota system for public jobs that they said favored those with links to Hasina’s Awami League party.

They then became an unprecedented challenge for Hasina, in the midst of a harsh repression by the police, highlighting the extent of the economic crisis in the country.

On Monday, protesters defied the military curfew and marched to the center of the capital, setting fire to Hasina’s official residence and gathering in front of the parliament building, where a banner reading “justice” hung.

Crowds also ransacked Hasina’s family ancestral home, turned into a museum, where her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – the country’s first president and independence leader – was assassinated.

Meanwhile, Hasina landed at a military airfield near New Delhi and met India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, according to Indian media reports, which also said she was taken to a safe house and would probably travel to the UK.

Indian media reported that the government will hold an emergency meeting in parliament on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Bangladesh.

Hasina, 76, has been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January and then saw millions of people take to the streets last month demanding she step down.