Sheikh Hasina places up defiant entrance from exile in India, saying ban on her Awami League will disenfranchise tens of millions.
Revealed On 29 Oct 2025
Bangladesh’s fugitive former chief Sheikh Hasina has warned that excluding her Awami League occasion from subsequent yr’s elections would deepen divisions within the nation as tens of millions of her supporters are set to boycott the vote.
Now exiled in India, the 78-year-old is at present being tried for crimes in opposition to humanity after being toppled in August 2024 by a student-led rebellion that, based on the United Nations, noticed as much as 1,400 folks killed in crackdowns as she clung to energy.
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The interim authorities of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus has pledged to carry elections in February however has banned the Awami League below amendments to the antiterrorism act, citing nationwide safety threats and struggle crimes investigations into the occasion’s senior leaders.
“The ban on the Awami League is just not solely unjust, it’s self-defeating,” Hasina stated in emailed feedback to the Reuters information company revealed on Wednesday.
“Thousands and thousands of individuals help the Awami League, in order issues stand, they won’t vote. You can not disenfranchise tens of millions of individuals if you would like a political system that works.”
The Awami League and the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) have lengthy dominated the politics of Bangladesh, which has greater than 126 million registered voters. The elections in January 2024 have been boycotted by the BNP as its high leaders have been both jailed or in exile.
Human Rights Watch has condemned the ban on the Awami League as “draconian”. Within the occasion’s absence, the BNP is predicted to steer in subsequent yr’s election whereas Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist occasion, is rising in reputation.
“We’re not asking Awami League voters to help different events,” Hasina informed Reuters of the upcoming elections. “We nonetheless hope frequent sense will prevail and we can be allowed to contest the election ourselves.”
‘The nucleus’ of all crimes
The Worldwide Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s home struggle crimes courtroom, has concluded proceedings in opposition to Hasina, and a verdict is anticipated on November 13.
Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam accused Hasina of being “the nucleus round whom all of the crimes have been dedicated” in the course of the rebellion and referred to as for the dying penalty if she is discovered responsible.
Prosecutors additionally alleged she oversaw disappearances and torture of opposition activists at clandestine detention centres run by safety companies.
Hasina has defied courtroom orders to return to attend the trial. She informed Reuters the proceedings have been “a politically motivated charade”.
“They’ve been introduced by kangaroo courts with responsible verdicts a foregone conclusion.”
In an emailed interview with the AFP information company additionally revealed on Wednesday, Hasina referred to as expenses that she had ordered safety forces to fireplace on protesters as “bogus” and stated she “mourned all of the lives misplaced in the course of the horrible days” of her crackdown.
The prosecution, which insisted her trial was honest, has performed audiotapes verified by police that urged Hasina instantly ordered her safety forces to “use deadly weapons” in opposition to protesters.
This month, attorneys for the Awami League requested that the Worldwide Felony Court docket in The Hague examine reported “retaliatory violence”, together with allegations of “beatings and lynchings”.
