Awami League supporters celebrate heckling of Prof Yunus

Awami League activists and sympathisers have taken to social media to celebrate the harassment of Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus by supporters of the party at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday.

While the incident drew widespread condemnation in Bangladesh, several individuals identified as Awami League supporters or sympathisers welcomed the confrontation, mocked Yunus, directed personal insults at him and his associates, or portrayed the heckling as an act of political resistance.

Journalist Anis Alamgir suggested that Yunus would face humiliation wherever he encountered Bangladeshi expatriates.

“Shameless Yunus, accompanied by his female friend,” Alamgir wrote on Facebook, sharing a video of Yunus at JFK airport.

“Seeing this picture early in the morning, I felt: fraudster Yunus, this is what is written in your fate, even after death! Where will you run?” he added.

Television host Abdun Nur Tushar also mocked Yunus, invoking the expressions “pressure group” and “reset button”.

“Pressure group? Reset button? After teaching everyone so much, he is now under pressure himself,” Tushar wrote in Facebook post.

“One Nobel laureate’s picture has been smeared with ink, while another Nobel laureate is being insulted in his chair! The great poet once said: ‘Those whom you have humiliated—in humiliation, you must become their equal!’” he added.

Ripon Dey, a journalist with The Business Standard, directed a sexually derogatory remark at Lamiya Morshed, an assistant to Yunus, apparently targeting her association with the Nobel laureate.

“If your heart does not cry when your lover is insulted,” Ripon wrote, referring to Morshed and describing her as a “promiscuous” woman.

In a separate post sharing footage of the airport confrontation, Ripon said Yunus would have to live with its consequences for the rest of his life.

Actor and Awami League leader Rokeya Prachi went further, claiming that Bangladeshi expatriates had detained Yunus in New York.

“Expatriates detained child and police killer Dr Yunus in New York! Those who destroy the country will have no place anywhere in this world,” she wrote.

Her allegations against Yunus and her claim that he had been detained were not substantiated in the material provided.

Sopnil Khan, identified as a US Awami League leader, characterised the confrontation at JFK airport as an act of “resistance” against Yunus, whom he called “usurer Yunus”.

Hochemin Islam, a trans feminist, questioned Yunus’s use of a wheelchair and explicitly called for physical aggression against him.

“Why is the bastard sitting in a wheelchair? He should be kicked off the chair,” Islam wrote.

The remarks stood out among the reactions for openly advocating physical mistreatment of the Nobel laureate.

Meanwhile, Nadim Mahmud, a columnist for Prothom Alo, drew a parallel between the airport confrontation and the political pressure tactics associated with Bangladesh’s recent political history.

“Finally, Professor Yunus was not spared either. Today, he fell into the clutches of the Awami League’s ‘pressure group’ at JFK airport in New York. If only to understand what a pressure group is, he has now had a taste of it,” Mahmud wrote.

Unlike those celebrating the confrontation, Mahmud described the incident as deeply embarrassing.

He characterised it as an extension of the “mob culture” that he said was established during the tenure of the interim government.

---