As apprehended our immediate neighbor Bangladesh slowly slipped to the endless cycles of violence and chaos followed by the detention, arrest and deaths of opposition party workers as well as common Bangladeshi nationals, while the south Asian country is approaching its national election in January 2024.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the principal opposition party of the country, has maintained its demand that the ruling Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina must resign before the polls paving the way for a neutral caretaker government in Dhaka. But Prime Minister Hasina, who is seeking the mandate from nearly 160 million Bangladeshi people for her consecutive fourth term in office, has already refused to accept the demand. The angry BNP and its allies organized a massive rally in Dhaka on 28 October and showcased their strength with the ultimatum to destabilize the government. The authorities cracked down on the agitators across the populous city and continued arresting thousands of them from various parts of Bangladesh.
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The Saturday demonstration remains one of the major public outbursts where the protesters clashed with the police personnel in various locations. On some occasions, the clashes turned violent and hundreds of agitators sustained injuries. At least one policer and two BNP leaders fell prey to violence. Several journalists also faced attacks while covering the clashes. It was followed by the arrest of many BNP leaders including its general secretary Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir by the law enforcement agencies.
Responding to the widespread arrest of opposition leaders and reports of violent clashes with the protesters, Amnesty International stated that the intensified crackdown on opposition party leaders and protesters over the weekend signal an attempt at a complete clampdown of dissent in Bangladesh ahead of the general elections. The repeated cycle of killings, arrests and repression in Bangladesh has deeply chilling implications on human rights in the country before, during and after the elections, said Yasasmin Kaviratne, AI’s south Asia regional campaigner in a statement issued from London on Tuesday.
Asking the Bangladeshi authorities to stop the crackdown on protesters and fulfil their duty to facilitate peaceful assemblies, she added, some individuals in the protests reportedly used violence and here the police must ensure that the peaceful protesters can continue their protests. The Bangladesh government should take all appropriate measures to deescalate the situation and ensure that all law enforcement agencies strictly adhere to international standards on the use of force when strictly necessary, in order to avoid further harm to people’s physical integrity.
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Hasina’s party won in over 250 Parliamentary seats in December 2018 general elections and thus enjoys an absolute majority in the 350-member Jatiya Sangsad, the highest legislative body of Bangladesh (it does not have provincial legislative assemblies like India). The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, enjoys the reputation as an influential leader and lately gained more political mileage after the special invitation from New Delhi to attend the G20 summit. Hasina was the only south Asian government head to be invited to attend and she also enjoyed a bilateral discussion with her host Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
But Khaleda Zia led BNP along with its allies particularly Jamaat-e-Islami will not allow Hasina to go without troubles. One can predict more street protests with violence across the country in the coming days. The turmoil may continue in the post-poll scenario, if the opposition alliance does not participate in the elections and subsequently Hasina wins again. The uninterrupted political chaos may invite the Bangladesh military to intervene and thus another dictator can surface in Dhaka. Otherwise, the radical Islamist groups may overpower everything in the Muslim majority nation.