DHAKA, Bangladesh – Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's rivals on Sunday foiled her party's Awami League plan to hold a rally in the Bangladeshi capital, seen as the first possible attempt to return to the streets since she fled the country in August. treason.
Read more: How Ousted Bangladesh Leader Sheikh Hasina Can Make an Unpopular Comeback
The meeting in Dhaka of Hasina's party was to commemorate the death of a party activist on November 10, 1987, which sparked a massive protest against former military dictator HM Ershad. He was eventually removed from office, until the end of his nine-year reign in 1990.
This day is remembered as “the day of democracy.” In 1991, Bangladesh switched to a parliamentary democracy from a presidential form of government, and since then Hasina and her rival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, have become the most powerful political figures in the country.
On Sunday, activists from the party led by Zia, Hasina's arch-rival, and members of the conservative Jamaat-e-Islami party took to the streets of Dhaka, filling most of the venue where the rally was scheduled to take place.
Others, including hundreds of student protesters, also announced that they would not allow Hasina's supporters to stand on the streets and hold a rally. The protesters said they thought Hasina's party was trying to make a comeback by holding a rally on the streets on Sunday. Protesters from the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, the group that led the riots in July-August, brutally hunted down Hasina's supporters.
Groups of people surrounded the headquarters of the Awami League party near Noor Hossain Square in Dhaka where Hasina's supporters were supposed to gather to hold the rally.
Security was tight in the area, but eyewitnesses and local media said the protesters attacked many of Hasina's supporters when they tried to get there and chanted slogans in favor of the fallen leader.
The Awami League said that many of its activists were arrested by the police as they were attacked.
Tensions flared throughout Sunday with anti-Hasina protesters saying they would not allow the party to hold any public meeting under any circumstances. The Awami League questioned the idea, saying it was against the spirit of democracy and the constitutional right to assembly.
The Awami League posted a series of videos on Facebook on Sunday showing its supporters being mistreated. Its party headquarters had previously been vandalized following Hasina's fall on August 5, and on Sunday it was empty and there were signs of vandalism. Outside, control was in the hands of Hasina's opponents.
Political turmoil in the South Asian country continued as Zia's party demanded immediate reforms and fresh elections from an interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. The party believes that it will be able to form a new government in the absence of Hasina's party, while other allies are also struggling.
As the caretaker government ends its three months in office, people are still worried about high prices of goods, law and order, mob justice and the rise of Islamist militancy and oppression by Hasina's regime. The international community is also wary of alleged attacks on minority groups, especially Hindus who make up about 8% of the country's 170 million people.
The Yunus-led government said it will seek the return of Hasina and her close associates as they face charges of crimes against humanity including the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the protests.
On Sunday, Bangladesh legal adviser Asif Nazrul said the interim government would ask Interpol to issue red notices seeking the arrest and return of fugitives suspected of being responsible for the deaths during the insurgency.
“We will … prioritize bringing them back wherever they are hiding,” he told reporters in Dhaka.
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