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Tensions spread this week as opposition supporters arrived in the capital ahead of a mass protest against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.
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By Saif Hasnat and Mujib Mashal
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladeshi authorities arrested two top opposition leaders Friday morning, ending a week of political tensions and adding to a standoff between police and opposition supporters that left at least one protester dead, dozens injured and many arrested.
Rights teams say Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has stepped up a crackdown on her warring parties as the South Asian country of 165 million people prepares for next year’s general election. impressive economic expansion that seems to be losing steam in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Mirza Abbas, senior leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were arrested by plainclothes security agents in a raid, the wives of the two men said. With Khaleda Zia, former prime minister and leader of the BNP, under arrest in space and excluded from politics, Mr. Alamgir, the secretary-general, has been the de facto leader of the opposition since Zia’s arrest in 2018.
“Four men came here to the apartment where we live and said they would take him with them,” said Rahat Ara Begum, M’s wife. Alamgir. ” When asked why they were doing it, they said they had been ordered to stop it by the higher authority. But they did say who the higher authority was.
Police in the capital, Dhaka, said they arrested the two leaders for wondering about last week’s clashes outside the B. N. P. headquarters. Faruk Hossain, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said 47 policemen were injured in clashes as they tried to disperse a large crowd of supporters gathered outside the headquarters ahead of a rally planned by the party on Saturday.
“They took their supporters, incited them to the police,” M. Hossain on arrests.
The BNP, in turn, accused police of “organized violence” to sabotage their rally, which they said will be the culmination of several rallies they have held in recent weeks and is expected to attract thousands of supporters.
Ms. Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding leader after the country’s separation from Pakistan in the 1970s, continued Bangladesh’s long history of brutal victor policies, implementing legislation and law enforcement in opposition to warring parties and activists. Under his rule, Bangladesh’s special forces, the Rapid Action Battalion, were accused of becoming a death squad. While Hasina’s reputation for brutality predates Hasina’s inauguration in 2009, she was sanctioned by the U. S. government. Some of its current and former leaders were accused of a slew of extrajudicial killings.
In recent years, Hasina’s government has used a virtual security law to arrest journalists, activists, and opposition members, some for minor offenses, such as critical comments about its handling of covid on Facebook. Over the past two years, more than 2,000 people have been arrested. detained under the law, which the United Nations says “imposes draconian consequences for a wide variety of vaguely explained acts. “
While addressing her critics, Hasina sought to highlight her country’s economic success, with the World Bank touting Bangladesh as an “inspiring expansion story” to effectively reduce poverty and expand its GDP per capita above that of neighboring India.
But just as the economy began to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were felt. led to a decrease in foreign exchange reserves, forcing Bangladesh to apply to the International Monetary Fund for assistance of 4500 million dollars.
Since July, the opposition has tried to mobilize around economic tension, organizing nearly a dozen giant rallies in other parts of the country. Maruf Mallick, a lecturer and political analyst from Bangladesh based in Germany, said the economic tension and the fact that the opposition has been gathering large numbers of people, despite resistance from the government, Hasina and her officials are worried.
“The government believes that if this situation continues, they could be in danger,” M. Mallick. ” And to cover up this situation of weakness, they try to attack political opponents. “
As clashes escalate, human rights teams say Hasina’s government has responded unilaterally, protecting its supporters while implicating the opposition in cases where police list many other “unidentified” people as suspects, a tactic that human rights activists say is then used as carte blanche to target political opponents.
“Law enforcement officials used these open files as search warrants to raid the homes of members of the political opposition in what appears to be overt political harassment and intimidation,” Human Rights Watch said.
Recent tensions came to a head on Wednesday, when thousands of B. N. P. supporters came to a headThey gathered outdoors at the party’s main headquarters in Dhaka as the government and the party were again caught up in a war of words over the site of Saturday’s demonstration. In the afternoon, heavily armed police raided the area, claiming that B. N. P. Fans disrupted the public and obstructed traffic.
Police accused the supporters of “vandalism and obstruction of police work” and carrying Molotov cocktails, rounding up about three hundred of them and calling them “terrorists. “
“We met there as usual. The police suddenly arrived and started beating our supporters. They detonated stun grenades, used weapons. They banned me from entering the party workplace and arrested our people,” said Alamgir, the de facto leader. of the BNP, to local media prior to his arrest. ” No doubt, they are plotting anything against us. I don’t know what they do in our workplace.
Over the past week, 15 foreign embassies in Dhaka issued a joint statement highlighting the right to nonviolent protest.
“As Bangladesh approaches its national elections next year, we remind Bangladesh of its commitments, as a UN member state, to freedom of expression, press freedom and non-violent assembly, among others, enshrined in the Declaration,” said Gwyn Lewis, the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh.
After the U. S. ambassador U. S. Department of Agriculture in Bangladesh, Peter D. Haas, who called for an investigation into political violence this week and called for coverage of the “fundamental freedoms of speech and nonviolent assembly,” a senior adviser to Ms. Hasnia responded, pointing to electoral conflicts and gun violence in the United States.
“Sheikh Hasina will bow to anyone’s orders or interference,” Obaidul Quader, cabinet minister and ruling party secretary-general, told an assembly of party leaders. “He is still not afraid of Allah. “
Saif Hasnat reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi.
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