Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, on Saturday evening formally banned the Awami League, the party of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, under the country’s anti-terrorism law. The announcement came in a statement from the Council of Advisers, the advisory body leading the interim administration, which said the ban would be formalized through an official gazette notification on the next working day.
The move follows days of protests by the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP), which emerged from the 2024 mass uprising that ousted Hasina’s government last August. NCP activists have staged blockades across Dhaka since Thursday, calling for a ban on the Awami League, which they accuse of corruption and mass atrocities.
The Council of Advisers, chaired by Yunus, has also amended Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) law to allow the prosecution of political parties and their affiliated bodies. The Council’s statement said the decision to ban the Awami League was taken to "protect the country’s security and sovereignty" and to ensure the safety of witnesses and complainants involved in ongoing trials against the party’s leaders.
What happened earlier?
Sheikh Hasina, 77, fled to India following her ouster last year. She and many of her senior party leaders face hundreds of cases, including charges of mass murder and corruption, filed in the wake of the student-led uprising. Many Awami League leaders have either been detained or have gone into hiding abroad.
The Awami League, formed in 1949, played a key role in Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, but its long-standing dominance in national politics has been challenged by the rise of the NCP, which crystallised from the Students against Discrimination (SAD) movement earlier this year.
However, the move to ban the Awami League has drawn mixed reactions within Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main rival to the Awami League, has distanced itself from the ban, saying it opposes prohibiting any political party.
(With PTI inputs)