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Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister of 15 years, has fled the nation after protesters demanding that she step down stormed her residence on Monday.
Ms Hasina, 76, reportedly handed over the nation’s reins to the army earlier than flying out in a helicopter to India, her strongest ally, bringing to an ignominious finish her iron-fisted rule.
Bangladesh, a rustic of 160 million folks, plunged into turmoil in late June when Ms Hasina’s authorities launched a crackdown on primarily scholar protesters demanding the rollback of a contentious quota system for presidency jobs. The crackdown noticed dozens of protesters killed, many extra injured and 1000’s detained.
After the Supreme Court docket slashed the roles quota for kinfolk of veterans of the 1971 battle of independence with Pakistan from 30 per cent to five per cent, the protests subsided, solely to erupt extra strongly this weekend.
Not less than 95 folks had been killed on Sunday because the protesters clashed with safety forces, taking the loss of life toll within the demonstrations to greater than 300.
Taking energy after ‘trauma’
The unrest that compelled Ms Hasina to flee was an eerie reminder of the mob rampage at her dwelling through the bloody army coup virtually 50 years in the past that ended within the assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujib Rahman, who was Bangladesh’s first prime minister.
Ms Hasina misplaced 18 members of her household and its family workers within the coup. She weaponised the trauma, says Dr Avinash Paliwal, a senior lecturer at Soas College of London who specialises in south Asian strategic affairs. He describes this as her “one very highly effective high quality” as a politician.
Proudly bearing her standing because the daughter of Bangladesh’s founder, Ms Hasina got here to energy in 1996, however she misplaced the following election in 2001.
Imposing an iron grip
She returned as prime minister in 2009 and promptly went about tightening her maintain on energy. She was extensively accused of muzzling dissent, finishing up extrajudicial killings, shrinking press freedom and cracking down on civil society.
Her Awami League get together received the 2014 election virtually unopposed after opposition events boycotted the election over allegations of vote rigging. It was the identical story in 2018.
Forward of the nationwide election in January this 12 months, the Hasina authorities allegedly arrested almost 20,000 employees of the Bangladesh Nationalist Social gathering. The mass arrests led to protests by the primary opposition get together’s members, inviting a violent state response.
The get together’s chief, former prime minister Khaleda Zia, was “on the point of loss of life” underneath extended home arrest, the opposition alleged in June final 12 months.
Human rights teams accused Ms Hasina’s administration of forcibly disappearing her critics – an allegation she denied.
After her inauguration as prime minister for a fourth consecutive time period, observers famous many pink flags of impending bother in Bangladesh.
“There’s a historical past of an autocratic slide in Hasina’s decision-making,” Dr Paliwal mentioned on the time. “The present elections could also be a remaining stamp on a full-blown one-party state.”
Chequered human rights document
In 2023, Amnesty Worldwide criticised the Hasina authorities for human rights violations, not least her jailing of critics and journalists underneath the draconian Data and Communication Expertise Act of 2006.
Ms Hasina accused the nation’s largest newspaper, Prothom Alo, of being an enemy of the Awami League, democracy, and the folks of Bangladesh.
“The federal government intensified its crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceable meeting forward of common elections scheduled for January 2024,” the group mentioned in its annual report.
“Authorities used powers within the Digital Safety Act and different laws to focus on journalists and human rights defenders, subjecting them to arbitrary detention and torture. There was a regarding improve in enforced disappearances and lack of accountability for deaths in custody.”
This document was attribute of Ms Hasina’s rule, specialists mentioned.
She tallied a protracted record of political enemies whilst she survived 19 assassination makes an attempt and had “no protected exit”, in line with Zillur Rahman, director of the Centre for Governance Research in Dhaka.
“She is at all times underneath risk,” he mentioned, “and she or he needs to be in energy.”