Resignations of officials close to Sheikh Hasina legal, says Yunus

Reiterates that key priority of the interim government is to restore the independence of the judiciary

Dhaka: The head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, says the high-profile resignations of authorities close to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are legal after student leaders who organised protests against Hasina’s government issued ultimatums for them to quit.

“Legally … all the steps were taken,” Yunus, 83, told a group of journalists Sunday night. The country’s chief justice, five justices and central bank governor have all resigned in the past few days, part of a dramatic transformation after weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs turned into a mass uprising. Hasina resigned and fled to India last week.

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Yunus said a key priority of the interim government is to restore the independence of the judiciary. He called former chief justice Obaidul Hassan “just a hangman”. Syed Refaat Ahmed was appointed the new chief justice on Sunday after his name was proposed by student leaders of the protests.

Students vow to cleanse the political system of Hasina’s rule, which they have denounced as autocratic. More than 300 people, including students and police officers, were killed in the weeks of violence. Yunus took over on Thursday after student leaders reached out. He said the students told him he was the only one they could trust.

He said he accepted “because these are the guys who broke the local government,” describing it as a “student-led revolution”. “It’s not my dream, it’s their dream. So I’m kind of helping them to make it come true,” Yunus said.

The interim government is expected to announce a new election, but it is not clear when it will be held. Yunus had been a longtime critic of Hasina and her government. An economist and banker by profession and known as the “banker to the poorest of the poor,” he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the use of microcredit to help impoverished people, particularly women.

Yunus ran into trouble with Hasina in 2008, when her administration launched a series of investigations into him and his Grameen Bank. He was put on trial in 2013 on charges of receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel Prize and royalties from a book. Yunus has denied the allegations, and his supporters say he was targeted because of his frosty relations with Hasina.