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Son of deposed Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Has called on the country’s interim government to lift the ban on Hasina’s party, saying an election that would oust it would be a sham.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Sajib Wazed Joy said Bangladesh would remain politically unstable if the current interim government led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate remains in place. Muhammad YunusFails to conduct an inclusive election.
“This ban must be lifted, the elections must be inclusive and free and fair,” Joy, a former adviser to the government led by her mother, told the AP from Washington DC.
He said, “What is happening now is actually an attempt to stop my mother and our political leaders from participating in the elections. This is political manipulation in the guise of justice.”
Elections in Bangladesh are expected to be held in February 2026. It will be the first elections in the South Asian country since Hasina was ousted in a student-led rebellion last year, ending her 15-year rule and forcing her to flee. IndiaFrom where he is in exile.
Three days after his removal, Yunus assumed command and promised to restore order and bring about reforms.
In May her government banned the activities of Hasina’s Awami League party and arrested several of its senior leaders. Many others, including former cabinet ministers, fled the country to neighboring India and elsewhere. Hasina and all her family members, including Joy and her sister, face charges ranging from crimes against humanity to corruption.
Joy says elections will not be recognized
Six rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, issued a letter to Yunus last week urging him to end the “sweeping ban” on Awami League activities, saying it “extremely restricts freedoms of association, assembly and expression and has been used to arrest Awami League members and alleged supporters engaged in peaceful activities.”
Joy, who has lived in the US for the past 30 years, said that if the Awami League Party was not given enough time to prepare for the elections, the results “will not be recognized by the people of the country, by international observers.”
He said, “We are not allowed to make any election preparations. So even if the ban is lifted at the last moment, the elections will be a sham.”
Bangladesh, a parliamentary democracy of 170 million people, has 52 registered political parties. The fall of Hasina’s government last year hindered the democratic transition of power and its politics remain at a crossroads.
Islamist party returned
Bangladesh Nationalist PartyHasina’s main political rival and the party headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is the main contender in the next election. Another major party, the Jatiya Party, is not allowed to function openly, its party headquarters was attacked and burned and its rallies routinely disrupted.
Bangladesh’s political landscape is also more fragmented than before after the country’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, returned to politics more than a decade after being suppressed by the Hasina government. In the past year, it has significantly expanded its presence and is attempting to form alliances with other radical Islamist groups and parties.
Joy said that if Bangladesh remained unstable, Islamists would benefit. He accused Yunus of supporting him and planning “rigged elections” to bring him to power.
The interim government did not immediately comment.
Joy acknowledged some early “mistakes” by Hasina’s government, which has been accused of brutally cracking down on protesters, but disputed a UN report that said 1,400 people may have been killed during the uprising. He cited a statement by a health adviser under Yunus as saying that about 800 people had died.
human rights allegations
Joy said all the deaths were “tragic” and needed a thorough investigation, but questioned the Yunus-led government’s decision to grant immunity to protesters involved in last year’s violence. He also accused Yunus’s government of conspiring against Hasina, who has been accused of crimes against humanity.
Last week, a prosecutor at a special domestic tribunal in Bangladesh sought the death penalty for Hasina. He did not hire a lawyer to represent him, and he had previously dismissed the trial process as a “kangaroo court”.
Joy also accused the Yunus government of violating human and political rights, saying thousands of supporters of the Awami League party have been jailed for more than a year and denied bail, many of whom have been charged with murder. He claimed that around 500 Awami League workers have been murdered since the rebellion, mostly by mobs, and 31 party workers have died in custody.
“The human rights record of this regime is atrocious,” Joy said, adding that the country’s religious minorities, particularly Hindus, are a major target.
The interim government had earlier denied such allegations of harassing minorities.