Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League on Tuesday announced a series of nationwide agitations and “resistance marches” till November 30, protesting the death sentence handed to the former premier by what it called an “illegal” tribunal.
On November 17, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) sentenced 78-year-old Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death on charges of “crimes against humanity,” following a trial conducted in absentia. Hasina is currently in India, and Kamal is also believed to be in hiding in the country.
In a statement on its official social media handle, the Awami League alleged that the tribunal’s order was part of a political “conspiracy” by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government to keep Hasina and the party “out of the election” scheduled for February.
Rejecting what it termed the “illegal verdict of the illegal ICT tribunal,” the party demanded Yunus’s resignation and announced protests, demonstrations and “resistance marches across all districts and upazilas until November 30.”
The Awami League described the tribunal’s judgment as “farcical,” claiming it had been “rejected with contempt” by the people and denounced the proceedings as a “mockery of a trial.”
The party said it was mobilising grassroots supporters, political leaders and stakeholders to counter what it claimed were “anti-state conspiracies,” vowing to spearhead nationwide resistance against any move to exclude pro-liberation groups from the electoral process.
“A staged election... will not be allowed in Bangladesh. It will be resisted at any cost,” the party declared, adding that a “tough nationwide movement” would soon be announced.
Hasina’s government was toppled on August 5 last year after the student-led ‘July Uprising’, which spiralled into violent protests. Three days later, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus returned from Paris at the request of agitating students to take charge of the interim government as chief adviser.
Hasina and other officials were accused of using harsh measures against the protesters, while a UN rights office report estimated that around 1,400 people were killed between July 15 and August 15 last year.
*With Agency Inputs
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