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Hasina’s Awami League calls for nationwide strike, labels Yunus govt ‘sponsors of radical militancy’
Story by Debdutta Chakraborty
Hasina’s Awami League calls for nationwide strike, labels Yunus govt ‘sponsors of radical militancy’
New Delhi: The Awami League has announced a series of protests in Bangladesh, intensifying its calls for the resignation of the interim government led by Prof. Muhammad Yunus.
The campaign, aimed at addressing what the opposition party describes as “oppression and misrule,” is scheduled to begin on 1 February and culminate in a nationwide blockade and a strict, all-day hartal on 16 and 18 February, respectively.
In a statement released late Tuesday on its official Facebook page, the party accused the current government of undermining the country’s democracy and neglecting the values of the 1971 Liberation War, stating that “human rights are being plundered,” and the “rule of law has collapsed”. The Sheikh Hasina-led party also called for the removal of individuals who it alleged were “sponsors of radical militancy”.
The note refers to Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus as “a fascist” who “forcibly usurped Bangladesh”. The Awami League’s statement emphasized that the protests were a response to the current political climate, which it says has seen the country’s democracy “exiled”.
“Yunus and his associates are burning in the fire of revenge today. Remove the sponsors of radical militancy and their associates and save Bangladesh. The country’s democracy is in exile today,” the statement, originally in Bengali, says.
The series of protests will kick off with leaflet distribution from 1 February to 5 February, followed by rallies and marches on 6 February and 10 February across the country. On 16 February, the party will organise a nationwide blockade, and on 18 February, a dawn-to-dusk hartal (general strike) is planned across Bangladesh.
It further demanded the withdrawal of charges against party leaders, including those related to the International Crimes Tribunal, calling the ongoing trials against the Awami League figures “farcical.”
The party’s leader, Sheikh Hasina, who has been in India since fleeing Bangladesh after the Awami League was ousted from power on 5 August last year, was notably referred to as the “Prime Minister” in the release.
“The spirit and values of the Liberation War have been abandoned. The rule of law has collapsed. In this situation, at the call of the greatest Bengali of all time, the daughter of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu, the Honorable Prime Minister and President of the Bangladesh Awami League, the people’s leader Sheikh Hasina, let us build a mass movement to restore democracy and re-establishing Bangladesh with the aspirations of the great Liberation War,” the statement reads.
The party had previously planned mass protests in November but was unable to follow through in the wake of the clashes with the Students Against Discrimination, the group that played a crucial role in ousting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, in Dhaka.
After the violence, the interim government had come out with a statement declaring that it would not allow Hasina’s party to proceed with the rally.
In the statement, the Awami League also made clear that it would escalate the protests if the government attempted to block its events. “If any obstruction is made in these programmes to realise the political and democratic rights of the country’s people, more strict programmes will be announced,” it warned.
The statement comes days after Mahfuz Anam, a key adviser to the interim government, announced that the Awami League would be excluded from contesting elections in the future.
At a street rally in Chandpur district on 25 January, Anam, a prominent leader of the Anti-Discrimination Movement, declared that the elections will be contested among “pro-Bangladesh groups only”, adding that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami would be permitted to carry out political activities in the country.
“One of these groups will establish future governance through a fair electoral process. However, the rehabilitation of the Awami League will not be allowed in this country,” Anam said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
