Muhammad Yunus, Chief Advisor of the former interim government in Bangladesh, faced an angry confrontation at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York where some Bangladeshi expatriates severely humiliated him by branding him a "terrorist", accusing him of killing thousands of people and destroying democracy in the South Asian country.
In a video widely circulated on social media, one protester was heard shouting at Yunus and saying, “You terrorist, why did you come here? You have destroyed the democracy in my country!” Another man accused Yunus of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Bangladesh. He said: “You terrorist, you killed thousands of people in Bangladesh”.
The footage showed the protesters hurling accusations at Yunus as he was being escorted out of the airport in a wheelchair. Some accused him of killing thousands of Bangladeshi police personnel, while others shouted “Go back” at the former Chief Advisor.
Yunus arrived at the airport in New York on October 12 aboard a Qatar Airways flight from Doha and was confronted by a group of people after reaching Terminal 8, Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Sun' reported. The confrontation comes amid continued criticism of Yunus’s 18-month tenure as head of the interim government, which has faced accusations of political vendetta, arbitrary arrests, escalating attacks on minorities and the prolonged detention of lawyers, politicians, journalists, academics and political activists.
A recent report in Daily Sun questioned the absence of publicly available records detailing the number of people arrested, formally charged or prosecuted during the period. "One of the key promises of the interim government was to carry out comprehensive reforms of state institutions.
Instead, critics contend that governance became increasingly dominated by unelected civil society figures – many of whom reportedly held foreign citizenships, an influential ‘kitchen cabinet,’ and other vested interests that exercised considerable influence without democratic accountability,” the report mentioned.
The report said that another major criticism of the interim administration was the alleged politicisation of state institutions. Citing critics, it noted that the political instability during the interim period enabled the Jamaat-e-Islami and the National Citizen Party (NCP) to expand their influence within sections of the bureaucracy and other state institutions. Rather than improving governance, critics argue, the period was characterised by growing "patronage, self-aggrandisement, and corruption".
‘You, terrorist, why did you come here?’: Muhammad Yunus confronted by angry Bangladeshi expatriates in New York
