High Commissioner for Human Rights congratulates Nobel Peace Prize laureate

13 October 2006

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today congratulated the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and its founder Muhammad Yunus on receiving the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and welcomed the growing international awareness that the fight against poverty also means working for respect for fundamental freedoms.

“Muhammad Yunus recognized early on that poverty is not inevitable or accidental”, the High Commissioner said.

“He saw how material deprivation can result from exclusion, discrimination and policies that do not give the poor a voice in matters affecting them”, she continued. “He took on poverty as a denial of human rights, deciding, for example, to ensure that women benefited equally from Grameen Bank and fighting entrenched bias against the poor”.

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were ahead of their time, the High Commissioner said. “Happily”, she added, “the links that he made between development and human rights are now part of the international discourse”.

“I fully concur with the Nobel Committee, which affirmed in its citation today that lasting peace, human rights and democracy cannot be achieved unless the billions of people affected break out of poverty”.