Human Rights Watch strongly criticised Bangladesh\u2019s interim government on Thursday, warning that it risked \u201cundermining fundamental freedoms\u201d through measures including its ban on the former ruling party.<\/p>\n
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that ousted then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.<\/p>\n
The interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has promised democratic reforms and vowed polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest.<\/p>\n
However, New York-based HRW said Yunus risked following the example of Hasina in clamping down on opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of pursuing its pledge to reform the criminal justice system and bring accountability for serious abuses, the government \u2026 is attempting to suppress the rights of supporters of the deposed leader,\u201d the rights group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
HRW said the government had used \u201cnewly introduced powers under a draconian amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act\u201d to suppress Hasina\u2019s party.<\/p>\n
Hasina\u2019s government was blamed for extensive human rights abuses and protesters demanded that Yunus take action.<\/p>\n
The government banned Hasina\u2019s Awami League party on May 12 after days of protests outside Yunus\u2019s house, pending the trial of Hasina and other key leaders.<\/p>\n
Hasina, 77, fled to India and has defied an arrest warrant from Dhaka over charges of crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cImposing a ban on any speech or activity deemed supportive of a political party is an excessive restriction on fundamental freedoms that mirrors the previous government\u2019s abusive clampdown on political opponents,\u201d HRW said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHasina\u2019s government abused legal powers to silence political opponents, but using similar methods against the supporters of her Awami League party would also violate those same fundamental freedoms,\u201d said HRW\u2019s Meenakshi Ganguly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Human Rights Watch strongly criticised Bangladesh\u2019s interim government on Thursday, warning that it risked \u201cundermining fundamental freedoms\u201d through measures including its ban on the former ruling party. The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that ousted then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9381,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9379\/revisions\/9381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}