A large group of Bangladeshis, many of them supporters of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, staged a protest outside the United Nations headquarters on Friday, accusing the country’s current chief adviser, Muhammad Yunus, of persecuting minorities and “turning Bangladesh into a Taliban state.”
Protesters carried placards reading “Stop killing minorities in Bangladesh” and “Say no to Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh” while chanting slogans such as “Yunus is Pakistani, go back to Pakistan.”
“We are protesting against the illegal Yunus regime,” said one protestor quoted by ANI. “Since August 5, 2024, when Sheikh Hasina was forced to leave Bangladesh, minorities – Hindus, Buddhists, Christians – have been systematically targeted and killed. Many have been forced to flee the country. This is why we demand elections and Yunus’s resignation.”
Another protester alleged that Yunus was “making Bangladesh a Taliban country” and called for the release of Chinmoy Krishna Das, an ISKCON priest arrested on sedition charges last year. The arrest sparked widespread outrage, and his bail petitions have so far been rejected by Bangladeshi courts.
The protest coincided with Muhammad Yunus’s address to the UN General Assembly — his second since the youth-led uprising that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule in 2024. Demonstrators accused him of working with Islamist forces and terrorist organisations to transform Bangladesh “into a semi-Taliban nation.”
