[🇧🇩] Political Activities of Awami League after the fall of Hasina's Regime

[Saif]

Awami League looks to its grassroots for a comeback

The Awami League, having lost power due to a mass uprising, is making efforts to regain its foothold in Bangladesh's political landscape. In this quest for revival, the party, whose activities are now banned, is attempting to reactivate grassroots leaders organisationally, carry out sporadic...

en.prothomalo.com

Awami League looks to its grassroots for a comeback

 

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/politics/313588/53-arrested-over-al-processions-in-dhaka-other-places

53 arrested over AL processions in Dhaka, other places
Staff Correspondent . Dhaka 13 September, 2026, 00:00

Police arrested 53 leaders and activists of the Awami League, activities of which are now banned for July atrocities, and its associate bodies till Saturday evening over processions taken out by them at different places in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country on Friday.

Of the arrestees, 32 were arrested in Dhaka city, eight in Mymensingh, four in Chattogram, one in Munshiganj and four in Bagerhat, according to police.

Leaders and activists of Awami League and its associate bodies brought out processions in Dhaka, Chattogram, Noakhali, Mymensingh, Netrokona, Pirojpur, Bagherhat, Barishal, Cumilla, Munshiganj and Bogura.

Police had arrested 32 people following a procession held by the Awami League in the capital’s Gulshan area, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Media and Public Relations Division in a message on Saturday, alleging that the arrested people had directly participated in the procession.

A Dhaka metropolitan magistrate court on Sunday placed 24 AL activists on a 10-day remand in a case filed with the Gulshan police station under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009.

Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Farzana Haque passed the order following a 10-day remand prayer by the police, according to court officials.

Gulshan police sub-inspector Mahbub Hossain filed the case against 118 named and 80-100 unnamed people as the AL leaders and activists brought out the procession and threw crude bombs targeting police personnel.

According to police, leaders and activists of the Awami League and its student wing, banned Chhatra League, gathered near Police Plaza in Gulshan before Juma prayers on Friday to bring out the procession.

Police dispersed the procession after the activists chanted various slogans.

Munshiganj sadar police station officer-in-charge Taslim Uddin said that the procession began at Narayanganj and ended in Munshiganj territory.

‘We have arrested one in this connection,’ the OC added.

Hathazari model police station officer-in-charge Md Zahidur Rahman said that they had arrested four people over the allegations of bringing out processions in Chattogram.

Bhaluka police OC Zahidul Islam said that eight people were arrested in Mymensingh over bringing out the procession.

Bagherhat district SP Hasan Mohammad Naser Rikabder said that four AL leaders and activists were arrested over a flash procession held at Pachakiaran Union under Morolganj upazila.

On May 11, 2025, the then interim government slapped a ban on activities of the AL and its associate bodies until the completion of the trial over the atrocities during the 2024 July student-mass uprising that forced the fall of the authoritarian AL regime.​

 

[Saif]

https://www.thedailystar.net/news/politics/news/no-reconciliation-awami-league-without-justice-says-deputy-speaker-4291141

No reconciliation with Awami League without justice, says deputy speaker

Kayser Kamal says accountability must precede national reconciliation and warns that impunity could allow authoritarianism to return

Star Online Report

Photo: Star

There can be no reconciliation with the ousted Awami League, whose political activities remain banned, without justice and accountability, Deputy Speaker Kayser Kamal said today.

National reconciliation without justice is not peace but “simply a pause between conflicts”, he said while speaking at a session titled “Justice, Accountability, and National Reconciliation” at the Bay of Bengal Conversation 2026 in Dhaka.

He said transition from autocracy to democracy is often threatened by institutional remnants of former regimes.

“Transitional justice requires far more than symbolic gestures or premature calls for unity. It demands forensic, systemic dismantling of impunity,” he said.

He said reconciliation had at times been used around the world as a political shield to protect perpetrators of state violence from legal consequences.

Referring to Bangladesh’s political transition following the July-August uprising of 2024, the deputy speaker said the events culminating on August 5 represented more than a change of government.

“What occurred leading up to and on the 5th of August was not merely a change of administration. It was fundamentally redefining our political paradigm,” he said.

Those responsible for abuses under the previous government must be brought to justice, he said, arguing that accountability was necessary not only as punishment but also to prevent authoritarian rule from recurring.

Kayser Kamal rejected calls from some quarters at home and abroad for reconciliation with the former regime.

“Their criminal, inhuman and ruthless actions against their own citizens have permanently disqualified them from any role in our political future,” he said.

“One cannot reconcile with an apparatus that systematically weaponised the state against the very people it was supposed to protect,” he added.

Kayser Kamal also said the post-August government must remain subject to accountability and public scrutiny.

“A government’s legitimacy is derived solely from its transparency and its willingness to subject itself to relentless public scrutiny,” he said.

Justice mechanisms, he said, must operate independently of political influence, while institutions should serve as custodians of the people’s will rather than instruments of those in power.

New Age Editor Nurul Kabir, speaking at the session, said genuine reconciliation required three elements: a shared investigation into the conflict, reparations for victims, and admission of guilt and punishment of perpetrators.

“After these three things are over, a genuine reconciliation can start,” he said.

He said conflict and confrontation were not inherently negative, citing anti-colonial struggles through which many societies secured political independence. But conflicts within nation states eventually required processes to establish responsibility and enable societies to move towards reconciliation.

He cited Northern Ireland, Colombia and South Africa as examples of efforts to develop frameworks for resolving prolonged conflicts.

In Bangladesh, Nurul Kabir identified three major unresolved areas of confrontation: the legacy of the 1971 Liberation War, the conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the violence surrounding the 2024 uprising.

On 1971, he said those who collaborated with Pakistani forces had yet to acknowledge their role and admit guilt, adding that many of them were now organised under the banner of Jamaat-e-Islami.

On the Chittagong Hill Tracts, he said reconciliation required both Bengali and non-Bengali communities to recognise their mistakes and jointly assess responsibility for the prolonged conflict.

Referring to the 2024 uprising, Nurul Kabir said he had yet to see remorse from those responsible for killing pro-democracy protesters.

“They are rather still blaming or accusing millions of protesters who took to the streets in July and August 2024,” he said.

Nurul Kabir said reconciliation cannot begin until those responsible for wrongdoing recognised their actions and accepted accountability.

Karori Singh, professor at the University of Rajasthan, said public office should be treated as a position of trust and adequate safeguards were needed to prevent office-holders from exercising arbitrary power.

Madalitso Zililo Phiri, a researcher at Wits University in South Africa, said debates on justice and reconciliation also needed to address structural inequalities inherited from the past, including those based on race, geography, ethnicity and gender.

Drawing on Cambodia’s experience, Nikki Singer, executive director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, said reconciliation could continue for decades after formal conflict ended.

She stressed the importance of narratives, dialogue and how societies remembered the past, while cautioning that an exclusive focus on assigning blame could make it difficult for societies to move forward.​