On January 1, 2024, Bangladesh sentenced world renowned Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus to six months in prison on charges of labor law violations. Dr. Yunus and his defense lawyers categorically deny these charges. The overwhelming consensus among Bangladeshis and the international community, including 176 Nobel laureates and global leaders, has been to undeniably support Dr. Yunus and his innocence. They are convinced that the conviction is politically motivated and based on fabricated charges. Sheikh Hasina has blatantly disregarded and defied any requests to drop the charges against Dr. Yunus.
Bangladesh is set to hold its 12th parliamentary elections on January 7, 2024. These elections are nothing more than a repetition of the ones held in 2014 and 2018 respectively, when Sheikh Hasina and her ruling party, the Awami League, conducted mass arrets and beatings of opposition members, particularly from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (the BNP) and its followers. The elections themselves have been rigged and results falsified, depriving Bangladeshis of their democratic constitutional rights to choose the leaders they want to represent them.
In the last 2 months alone, 21,000 opposition members have been detained, several of them dying in custody. It has been well documented over the last 15 years of the Awami League’s continuous rule that enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings have become rampant at the slightest opposition or dissent against the ruling party.
The United States’ consistent efforts to advocate for human rights, democracy and election integrity in Bangladesh for the last 3 years have been taken by the Awami League as mere talking points, leading to yet another election in which the people of Bangladesh will not be able to exercise their democratic rights.
In its efforts to give the international community and media the semblance of a participatory election, the Awami League has been reported to create smaller parties and coerce the third largest party, the Jatiya Party to participate, promising a certain number of parliamentary seats. Even the Bangladeshi media, which is usually completely restrained from publishing anything which even remotely questions the ruling regime, has reported on numerous occasions the practice of “seat sharing” in which the Awami League has been in negotiations with reluctant candidates to participate, only to give the impression to the international community that free and fair elections have been held.
Furthermore, and equally undemocratic, is the Awami League’s launch of 250, 000 campaigners to bring voters to the polling stations. In light of the fact that there is only really one party in the election, with all other “opposition” parties under the umbrella of the Awami League, it begs the question of what these campaigners would actually be doing. Bringing in voters, in all certitude, would lead to the coercion of these voters to cast votes for the Awami League. There is reason to believe and adequate precedence to consider the possibility that members of civil society would be offered money to come out and cast their votes for the Awami League and its allies, and any refusal to do so may lead to arrets or violence or both.
CHRD Bangladesh, along with many other international human rights organizations and journalists, has condemned repeatedly the lack of civic space and democracy in Bangladesh under the current government. CHRD Bangladesh has also pointed out on many occasions that a free and fair electoral process in Bangladesh is an absolute impossibility under the Awami League regime.
Therefore, CHRD Bangladesh strongly urges the United States State Department and Members of the United States Congress to re-evaluate US diplomatic and trade relations with the current Awami League regime in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh has demonstrated time and time again that it willingly disregards any democratic practices of governance and election integrity, while continuing, on a daily basis its merciless human rights violations on innocent opposition members and civilians. We also urge the European Union re-evaluate its ties with the Awami League government.
The United States has always stood for democracy and individual liberties. Therefore, the acceptance and continued bilateral relations with a repeatedly unelected and undemocratic regime goes against the very principles of who we are as a nation.