The administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh is not showing any sign of respite to or improvement on its repressive activities on the political opposition, particularly the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It remains completely defiant to the global calls for a free, fair, inclusive, and peaceful election due in a few months. Following are a few recent examples:
- Six BNP affiliated students were arrested in Dhaka on August 17, 2023, under the draconian Special Power Act and Arms Act. Family members of arrested students alleged that the student leaders were tortured under custody to obtain forced confessions. Torture signs were visible during their court appearances, yet the judge granted further police remand for questioning, which meant further violent treatment in torture cells. Amnesty International issued a statement demanding an urgent and fair investigation into the torture which goes against Bangladesh’s obligation to the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
- Anisha Siddika (pictured above), a 60-year-old woman, and two other persons were arrested on August 20, 2023, from a house in Khulna, south of Dhaka. Anisha’s son Tanjilur Rahman, a PhD student in the US, made comments on social media in support of the respected Islamic scholar Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeedi who also died in custody on August 14, 2023, under mysterious circumstances. Local Awami thugs brought the police to arrest Tanjilur for his social media comments on Maulana Sayeedi, but not finding him, they arrested his mother and others. The police then fabricated made up the case as “conspiracy of terror activities.”
- Md Abul Bashar, a young BNP leader of Dhaka, died in custody on August 21, 2026. His wife Soma Begum said that her husband was arrested on July 26, just two days before the BNP’s grand rally in Dhaka on July 28, 2023, because he was involved in the party’s politics. She asserted that her husband was healthy and had no cardiac issues to suffer from a heart attack, as reported by the police. She demanded an urgent and fair inquiry and trial for her husband’s death.
In addition, the BNP claims that over the last 15 years, more than 1,500 of its members have been killed by the regime, more than 600 members abducted or killed extra-judicially, more than 100,000 members thrown to prison, more than 4 million members faced false lawsuits and thousands of its members are unable to go home fearing safety and intimidation. Other opposition parties do not fare any better.
The Coalition for Human Rights & Democracy (CHRD Bangladesh) strongly condemns such acts of political persecution and custodial deaths of opposition activists and the society at large in Bangladesh and demands immediate cessation of these illegal and undemocratic acts. It also urges the administration to conduct fair investigations by neutral authorities against all such political persecutions and bring the offenders to justice.
6 arrested BNP student leaders