On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Mehdi sits down with Bangladesh’s interim leader, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, a year after student protesters in his country ousted the repressive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
“I was surprised,” Yunus says about his people’s decision to name him interim leader, which he reluctantly accepted. “If you have sacrificed so much, I will change my mind,” he recalls telling the impassioned protestors at the time.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing since then. Robbery cases in the country have reached their highest point in six years, and dozens of police officers have been killed in the wake of Hasina’s departure, while others have completely abandoned their posts.
In November, around 30,000 Hindus in Bangladesh gathered to protest Yunus’s interim government, with Donald Trump even weighing in to call Bangladesh’s treatment of Hindus “barbaric”.
“One of the specialties of India right now is fake news,” the Nobel laureate tells Zeteo, before declaiming, “There’s no anti-Hindu violence.”
Mehdi presses Yunus on a number of topics in this wide-ranging interview with Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser. Why do new elections have to wait until February of next year? What is Yunus’s plan for the 1.3 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar currently residing in Bangladesh? And how can he justify effectively banning an entire political party, Hasina’s Awami League?
Paid subscribers can watch the full interview above, which also includes a discussion of Trump’s tariffs on Bangladesh. Free subscribers can watch a five-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo and never hitting another paywall again.
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