Former ruling party slams government decision to ban all its activities

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Bangladesh’s former ruling party accused yesterday the interim government of “stoking division” and trampling on “democratic norms” by banning all of its activities.

The government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted following a deadly mass uprising, announced late Saturday the Awami League party can no longer be active online and elsewhere in the South Asian country under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The law affairs adviser, Asif Nazrul, said the ban would remain until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students and other protesters during an anti-government uprising in July and August last year.

He also said the government has empowered the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal to try any political party for serious crimes.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the country’s other main political party that is headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, had previously opposed the proposal to ban the Awami League party.

However, Salahuddin Ahmed, a senior BNP leader, welcomed yesterday the Awami League trial over the protesters’ death, calling it a “delayed but timely” response to a long-standing demand by his party, reported the English-language Daily Star newspaper.

The ban is expected to formally come into effect today.

The Awami League’s official account on X said yesterday: “People no more feel safe under Yunus,” denouncing the ban that “stoked division within society, strangled democratic norms, fueled ongoing pogrom against dissenters and strangled inclusivity, all undemocratic steps under pretext of making trial of July-August violence and reform scheme.”

The party also condemned the thousands who took to the streets for two days, including supporters of a newly formed political party by students and Islamists from various groups who later joined the protests, who called for the Awami League to be banned. It accused the gatherings of being “state-sponsored.”

Thousands of protesters had issued an ultimatum to the government to ban the Awami League party by Saturday night.

Hasina, in exile in India since Aug. 5, and many of her senior party colleagues have been accused of murdering protesters after her ouster.

The United Nations human rights office said in a report in February that up to 1,400 people may have been killed during three weeks of anti-Hasina protests. In the report of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights recommended to “refrain from political party bans that would undermine a return to a genuine multi-party democracy and effectively disenfranchise a large part of the Bangladeshi electorate.”

The student-led uprising ended Hasina’s 15 years of rule.

Bangladesh’s politics is now at a crossroads.

The BNP wants an election in December and has demanded a clear-cut roadmap from the interim government, which has said the election would be held either in December or June next year, depending on the extent of reforms the government has taken up.  JULHAS ALAM, Bangladesh, MDT/AP