#Bangladesh chief of army

[townpostin]

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Resigns, Interim Government to be Formed

Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the formation of an interim government to run the country. Sheikh Hasina has stepped down as Prime Minister of Bangladesh, with an interim government set to take over, Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman confirmed today. WORLD DESK – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned, and an interim government…

[roomselfcontain2]

Low budget and low income Selfcontain room for rent this house is too affordable fenced with gate and security with running water inside located at ozuoba in port Harcourt city rivers state Nigeria.

[morganablenewsmedia]

Bangladesh: PM Hasina Resigns, Flees Country

Bangladesh: PM Hasina Resigns, Flees Country Flees As Protesters Invade Residence Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of deadly demonstrations. Hasina’s resignation came on Monday after weeks of deadly protest which claimed hundreds of lives rocked the country. She fled in other to deter further bloodshed in the country. In a public address, the…

[rightnewshindi]

बांग्लादेश में हुआ तख्ता पलट, शेख हसीना देश छोड़कर भागी; आर्मी चीफ ने की प्रेस कॉन्फ्रेंस

Bangladesh News: पड़ोसी मुल्क बांग्लादेश हिंसा की आग में सुलग रहा है. इस बीच खबर है कि प्रधानमंत्री शेख हसीना ने इस्तीफा दे दिया है लेकिन अभी इसकी पुष्टि नहीं हुई है. इस बीच बड़ी संख्या में प्रदर्शनकारी प्रधानमंत्री आवास में दाखिल हो गए हैं. बांग्लादेश मे क्या चल रहा है, जानिए अपडेट.. दोपहर बाद 3ः29 बजे�� आर्मी चीफ बोले- आपकी मांगें हम पूरी करेंगे. तोड़ फोड़ से दूर रहिये. आप लोग हमारे साथ चलेंगे…

[zvaigzdelasas]

[ThePrint is Indian Private Media]

Speaking to ThePrint minutes after Hasina left Bangladesh, Yunus, who has been charged by the Hasina government in over 190 cases, said, “Bangladesh is liberated… We are a free country now.”

“We were an occupied country as long as she (Hasina) was there. She was behaving like an occupation force, a dictator, a general, controlling everything. Today all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated.”[...]

Yunus was convicted by the Hasina-led government in January for violating the country’s labour laws and is currently out on bail.[...]

Yunus, founder of the pioneering microfinance system that lifted millions of poor out of poverty in Bangladesh, ruled out any role in active politics. “I’m not the kind of person who would like to be in politics. Politics is not my cup of tea,” he maintained.

Currently in Paris, he said he would soon return to Bangladesh and continue to work for the people the way he did earlier.[...]

“I will continue with my work in a more free environment that I didn’t have during the regime of Sheikh Hasina because she was always attacking me. I will continue, devote myself to the things I could not do before,” he said.

Earlier in the day, coming down heavily on the Hasina-led government, Yunus had in a separate interview with ThePrint demanded that she resign immediately.[...]

He added that unlike the US, India has played a “major role” as far as Bangladesh is concerned.

“I don’t know what role they are playing now in this scenario and what role they will play in the upcoming situation,” he told ThePrint.[...]

The Nobel Laureate said that with Hasina no longer calling the shots in Dhaka, things have changed in Bangladesh and he is not sure what role opposition parties including former PM Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) will play in the current scenario.

He added that the BNP was silent so far because they have been under attack all along. “Now in a free country, how they emerge, how they decide their policies and actions, if there is an election, what role they will play in the elections, how they perform in the elections, is not very clear as of now.”

[Dhaka Tribune is Bengali Private Media]

The coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement have announced an outline for an interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus.

This information was conveyed in a video message by key coordinators of the student movement, Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud, and Abu Bakar Mazumdar, at 4:15am on Tuesday.[...]

The army chief also mentioned that he would soon meet with representatives of students and teachers.

He expressed confidence that the situation would return to normal soon and sought all-out cooperation from people of all classes and professions, including students, regardless of party affiliations and opinions.

5 Aug 24

[mariacallous]

Until she fled Bangladesh on Monday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina governed as if she still had full legitimacy, even as students and protesters had been on the streets for days asking her to resign. The trigger for the demonstrations—civil service job quotas for Bangladeshi freedom fighters and their families—had become a distant memory. Collective anger about years of human rights abuses, corruption, and rigged elections had coalesced into an uprising.

In a conversation over the weekend, Zonayed Saki, the left-leaning leader of the Ganosamhati Andolan party—himself a student activist against military rule in the 1990s—said, “The people’s sentiment is that she has to go first. The government had lost moral and political legitimacy.”

Hasina believed that she was elected democratically. She won an unprecedented fourth term in a flawed vote in January, which most of the major opposition parties had boycotted and the United States, the United Kingdom, and human rights groups criticized for not being free or fair. Still, other major governments congratulated Hasina on the victory. The bureaucracy, the media, the police, and the army were on her side. What could go wrong?

Over the weekend, Hasina declared a curfew again, cut off the internet, and encouraged the youth wing of the ruling Awami League party to take to the streets. Trigger-happy security forces, who were blamed for the deaths of more than 200 people as the protests turned violent in mid-July, were out in full force. Nearly 100 more people died over the weekend, including 14 police officers; video emerged showing security forces shooting point-blank at nonviolent protesters.

Hasina spoke darkly of Islamists spreading terrorism by co-opting the protests, but the students remained undeterred. A long march was announced for Aug. 5 to demand her resignation. Hasina declared a three-day public holiday in response. But by midday Monday, she had resigned, fleeing the country in a helicopter. The first stop would be India and after that an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground has turned volatile amid the power vacuum. Thousands of demonstrators rushed to the Ganabhaban, the prime minister’s official residence in Dhaka, looting souvenirs and frolicking on the premises. People have also reportedly attacked the home of Bangladesh’s chief justice. There are also reports of the toppling of a statue of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s independence movement and then ruled the country until he was assassinated in 1975. Mujib’s family home, now a museum, went up in flames in an act of grotesque retribution. These incidents stand in contrast to the disciplined and peaceful demonstrations led by students, who have urged for calm and were seen appealing to the looters to return stolen property.

Bangladesh’s army has called for calm, but it has not yet intervened. The country’s armed forces overthrew elected governments in the 1970s and 1980s and attempted coups in later years. But now, the generals would naturally want to play it safe: They cannot afford to lose the confidence of Bangladeshis and are aware of the deep distrust that Bangladeshis have developed for the armed forces because their political interventions have weakened the country’s democracy.

There is another calculation at play, too: Bangladesh is among the largest suppliers of soldiers to the United Nations peacekeeping forces, and it won’t antagonize the international community by letting its soldiers act at will. (Those peacekeeping arrangements mean the armed forces are less reliant on Bangladesh’s state budget.) In mid-July, when military vehicles with U.N. insignia were deployed on Dhaka’s streets, foreign diplomats rightly complained; Bangladeshi officials gave weak excuses and promised not to use U.N. equipment to settle domestic unrest.

Hasina seemed to have two options: to seek a graceful exit or to dig her heels in and let the troops take all necessary means to protect her regime. In the end, she fled. Where she will settle is unclear. India would pose problems for Prime Minister Narendra Modi; ruling party politicians have routinely criticized undocumented Bangladeshis in India, even creating legislation to identify and possibly deport them. The United Kingdom may be risky for Hasina because while it hosts many Bangladeshi immigrants, they include dissidents forced into exile during her 15-year rule as well as supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Had Hasina dug in, there would have been bloody consequences. Even if the army had shown restraint toward the protesters, there is no telling if Bangladesh’s notorious border guards or the Rapid Action Battalion—which has faced criticism from human rights groups—would have acted responsibly. There has been violence on both sides, but it has come primarily from the Bangladeshi state. As of Monday, as many as 32 children had died, according to UNICEF.

By stepping aside disgracefully, Hasina leaves chaos in her wake. It is crucial that any interim administration restore order quickly, but it can only do so if it has the backing of the army. A list of bureaucrats, civil society veterans, and others who might form the nucleus of such a government has been released, but the situation is too fluid to consider such lists final. In the early 2000s, Bangladesh had an unelected but legitimate caretaker government to help assist its transition to democracy after a military intervention—which it did, paving the way for Hasina’s election in December 2008.

Hasina has long demonized Bangladesh’s Islamist political forces. But Islamic fundamentalist parties have secured more than 10 percent of the vote only once, in 1991; in all subsequent elections, their vote share has been closer to 5 to 6 percent. Most Bangladeshis are Muslims, but they aren’t extremists; in Bangladeshi American poet Tarfia Faizullah’s famous words, when a Pakistani soldier assaulted a Bengali woman in 1971 and asked her if she was Muslim or Bengali, she defiantly said, “Both.”

The song accompanying many videos of the protests last week was from the pre-Partition poet Dwijendralal Ray, a Hindu, celebrating the golden land of Bengal. To see Bangladesh in binary terms—of Muslim or not Muslim—shows a profound misreading of a complex society. It reveals the myopia of external observers, notably analysts close to the current Indian government, who had invested hugely in Hasina and irrationally fear that an Islamic republic is the only alternative to her rule. In so doing, they frittered away some of the goodwill that India had earned in Bangladesh over the years, particularly for its support during the liberation war.

As a result, the current situation in Bangladesh will complicate things for Modi, Hasina’s close friend. His government had invested hugely in their relationship, aiming to build a trade corridor across Bangladesh and seeking Bangladeshi support to curb separatism in northeastern India. This alienated India from Bangladeshis, who expected New Delhi to defend democratic forces in Dhaka. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, whom Hasina condemned and called a “bloodsucker of the poor,” chided India for not doing enough: South Asia is a family, he said in a recent interview, and when a house is burning, brothers should come and help.

With Hasina fleeing, India has lost an ally it thought it could rely on. The road ahead for Bangladesh will be difficult. Expectations will be high, and the people will want early elections. If those are free and fair, a different Bangladesh can emerge. Whether it will be consistent with the liberal, secular, democratic ethos that Bangladesh’s founders fought for remains to be seen.

[sivavakkiyar]

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday resigned and fled the country amid widespread anti-government protests, Bangladeshi Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman announced.

Waker-uz-Zaman said that an interim government will be formed.

Hasina left the country along with her younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, Prothom Alo reported. While several reports said that the two had arrived at an Indian Air Force base near Delhi, it was not clear where they were ultimately headed.

This came after the student-led protests against a controversial quota scheme for government jobs, which started in July, evolved into a broader agitation against her administration.

On Monday afternoon, protestors stormed the prime minister’s official residence in Dhaka, BBC reported.

[beardedmrbean]

Bangladesh's parliament has been dissolved, a day after prime minister Sheikh Hasina was forced from power.

Ms Hasina resigned and fled the country after weeks of student-led protests spiralled into deadly unrest.

The dissolution of parliament, a key demand of protesters, paves the way for establishing an interim government.

Bangladeshis are waiting to see what comes next, as the country's military chief is holding talks with political leaders and protest organisers.

According to local media, more than 100 people died in violent clashes across Bangladesh on Monday, the single deadliest day since mass demonstrations began.

Hundreds of police stations were also torched, with the Bangladesh Police Service Association (BPSA) declaring a strike "until the security of every member of the police is secure".

The group also sought to place the blame at the door of authorities, saying they were "forced to fire".

Overall, more than 400 people are believed to have died, as protests were met with harsh repression by government forces.

The protests began in early July with peaceful demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, but snowballed into a broader anti-government movement.

Weeks of unrest culminated in the storming of the prime minister's official residence, not long after Ms Hasina had fled to neighbouring India, ending nearly 15 years of rule.

Bangladeshi leaders are under pressure to establish an interim government to avoid a power vacuum that could lead to further clashes.

Within hours of her resignation, Bangladesh's army chief Gen Waker-uz-Zaman pledged that an interim administration would be formed, adding on state television that "it is time to stop the violence".

Student leaders have been clear they will not accept a military-led government, pushing for Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to become the interim government's chief adviser.

Mr Yunus, who agreed to take up the role, said: “When the students who sacrificed so much are requesting me to step in at this difficult juncture, how can I refuse?”

He is returning to Dhaka from Paris, where he is undergoing a minor medical procedure, according to his spokesperson.

Meanwhile, ex-prime minister and key opposition leader Khaleda Zia was released from years of house arrest, a presidential statement said.

She chairs the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair elections were not possible under Ms Hasina.

The BNP wanted the polls to be held under a neutral caretaker administration. This has now become a possibility after the departure of Ms Hasina, who had always rejected this demand.

Ms Zia, 78, served as prime minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, but was imprisoned in 2018 for corruption, although she said the charges were politically motivated.

She was not the only opposition figure to be released after years of detention.

Activist Ahmad Bin Quasem was also released from detention, according to his lawyer Michael Polak.

Rights groups say Mr Quasem was taken away by security forces in 2016, just one of hundreds of forced disappearances in the country under Ms Hasina's rule.

"There were many points during his detention that he was feared dead, and the uncertainty was one of the many tools of repression utilised by the regime," Mr Polak explained, adding they hoped the decision to release political prisoners "is a positive sign of their intentions".

"Unfortunately, the good news won’t be shared by all," he told the BBC, stating that a number of political prisoners had died in custody.

At least 20 other families of political prisoners gathered outside a military intelligence force building in the capital Dhaka earlier in the day, still desperately waiting for news about their loved ones, AFP news agency reports.

"We need answers," Sanjida Islam Tulee, a co-ordinator of Mayer Daak (The Call of the Mothers) campaign group, told the news agency.

Across the border in India, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he was "deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored" in Bangladesh, with which India shares a 4,096-km (2,545-mile) border and has close economic and cultural ties.

He gave the first official confirmation that Ms Hasina made a request to travel to India at "very short notice" and "arrived yesterday evening in Delhi".

India also deployed additional troops along its border with Bangladesh.

"Our border guarding forces have also been instructed to be exceptionally alert in view of this complex situation," Mr Jaishankar said.

[dzthenerd490]

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[follow-up-news]

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country Monday, the army chief said, a day after almost 100 people were killed in clashes with the police as student-led protesters demanded she step down. In an address to the nation, army chief Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman said that an interim government would be formed and that every death would be investigated. He implored the public to cooperate and ensure peace. “We will not achieve anything else through fighting and violence,” he said. “I urge you all to stop all conflicts and destruction.”The ouster of Hasina, 76, Bangladesh’s longest-serving leader, is a seismic change for the majority-Muslim South Asian nation of 170 million people, where at least 300 people have been killed in recent weeks amid a mass movement against what critics said was her increasingly autocratic rule.

[metamatar]

[From 15 Dec 2023]

me when im against fascism:

Its predecessor, the party (Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan), strongly opposed the independence of Bangladesh and break-up of Pakistan. In 1971, paramilitary forces associated with the party collaborated with the Pakistan Army in mass killings of Bangladeshi nationalists and pro-intellectuals.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]

Upon the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the new government banned Jamaat-e-Islami from political participation since the government was secular and some of its leaders went into exile in Pakistan. Following the assassination of the first president and the military coup in 1975, the ban on the Jamaat was lifted and the new party Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was formed. Exiled leaders were allowed to return. Abbas Ali Khan was the acting Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. The Jamaat agenda is the creation of an "Islamic state" with the Sha'ria legal system, and outlawing "un-Islamic" practices and laws. For this reason, it interpretes their central political concept "Iqamat-e-Deen" as establishing Islamic state by possession of state power

Upon the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the new government banned Jamaat-e-Islami from political participation since the government was secular and some of its leaders went into exile in Pakistan. Following the assassination of the first president and the military coup in 1975, the ban on the Jamaat was lifted and the new party Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was formed.

[...] In 2010 the government, led by the Awami League, began prosecution of war crimes committed during the 1971 war under the International Crimes Tribunal. By 2012, two leaders of the BNP, one leader from Jatiyo Party and eight of Jamaat had been charged with war crimes, and by March 2013, three Jamaat leaders had been convicted of crimes. In response, the Jamaat held major strikes and protests across the country, which led to more than 60 deaths (mostly by security forces.)

The former leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, was sentenced to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity on 15 July 2013. [...]

In 1973, the government cancelled his citizenship for allegedly co-operating with Pakistani forces during the independence war.

Azam lived as an exile in Pakistan and the UK but returned to Bangladesh in 1978 when the country was led by Gen Ziaur Rahman - the assassinated husband of the country's current opposition leader [of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party] Khaleda Zia.

Minority community leaders, rights activists and liberal personalities have raised concerns over the call by acting chief of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Tarique Rahman, who stands convicted in a number of cases, for party men to mobilise on the streets for "regime change" on 28 October [2023].

[...] Rana Dasgupta said, considering the violent attacks orchestrated by BNP in the past, "this latest threat by Tarique is deeply concerning for the minorities in Bangladesh".

"Any political party that complies with the basic tenets of democracy should refrain from issuing such threats publicly," Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad, added.

In the run-up to the 2014 national election, violence on the streets coupled with targeted attacks on minorities across the country still traumatise the victims, he observed

[indizombie]

Under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, Bangladesh has transformed itself by building new roads, bridges, factories and even a metro rail in the capital Dhaka. Its per-capita income has tripled in the last decade and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years. But many say that some of that growth is only helping those close to Ms Hasina’s Awami League. Dr Luthfa says: “We are witnessing so much corruption. Especially among those close to the ruling party. Corruption has been continuing for a long time without being punished.” Social media in Bangladesh in recent months has been dominated by discussions about corruption allegations against some of Ms Hasina’s former top officials – including a former army chief, ex-police chief, senior tax officers and state recruitment officials.

Anbarasan Ethirajan, ‘Why is the Bangladeshi government facing so much anger?’, BBC

[warningsine]

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on Monday as thousands of protesters defied a military curfew and stormed her official residence, sparking violence that killed at least 66 people according to local police and hospitals. Army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman confirmed in a televised address that Hasina had left the country and that an interim government would be formed. Hasina's resignation comes as deadly protests over the reintroduction of a quota scheme for government jobs began in July this year.

Sheikh Hasina's 15-year rule as Bangladesh's prime minister ended Monday as she fled more than a month of deadly protests and the military announced it would form an interim government.

Hasina had sought to quell nationwide protests against her government since early July but she fled the country after brutal unrest on Sunday in which nearly 100 people were killed.

"We want a corruption-free Bangladesh, where everyone would have the right to express their opinion," said Monirul Islam, a 27-year-old man among hundreds of thousands celebrating in the streets in the capital Dhaka.

Bangladesh's army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a broadcast to the nation on state television that Hasina had resigned and the military would form a caretaker government.

Why is the army speaking for Bangladesh following PM Sheikh Hasina's resignation?

"The country has suffered a lot, the economy has been hit, many people have been killed – it is time to stop the violence," said Waker, shortly after jubilant crowds stormed and looted Hasina's official residence.

At least 66 people were killed Monday, police said, saying gangs had launched revenge attacks on Hasina's allies. Many were shot.

Millions of Bangladeshis took to the streets across the South Asian country.

Jubilant crowds waved flags, some dancing on top of a tank, before thousands broke through the gates of Hasina's residence. Others later stormed parliament.

Bangladesh's Channel 24 broadcast images of crowds running into the prime minister's compound, grinning and waving to the camera, looting furniture and books, or relaxing on beds.

'Mob rule'

Mobs also raided and ransacked the homes of Hasina's Awami League party allies as well as police stations, witnesses told AFP.

"The homes and businesses of pro-Awami League people have been attacked," a senior police officer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and calling the violence "mob rule".

Others torched television stations that had backed Hasina's rule, smashed statues of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's independence hero, and set fire to a museum dedicated to him.

"The time has come to make them accountable for torture," said protester Kaza Ahmed. "Sheikh Hasina is responsible for murder."

Waker said protests should end and vowed that "all the injustices will be addressed", while the military said it would lift a curfew on Tuesday morning, with businesses and schools to reopen.

Late Monday, Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin ordered the release of prisoners from the protests, as well as former prime minister and key opposition leader Khaleda Zia, 78.

Zia, who is in poor health, was jailed by her arch-rival Hasina for graft in 2018.

The president and army chief also met late Monday, alongside key opposition leaders, with the president's press team saying it had been "decided to form an interim government immediately".

It was not immediately clear if Waker would lead it.

Security forces had supported Hasina's government throughout the unrest, which began last month in the form of protests against civil service job quotas and then escalated into wider calls for her to stand down.

Hasina, 76, fled the country by helicopter, a source close to the ousted leader told AFP.

Media in neighbouring India reported Hasina had landed at a military airbase near New Delhi.

A top-level source said she wanted to "transit" on to London, but calls by the British government for a UN-led investigation into "unprecedented levels of violence" put that into doubt.

Bangladesh's military said they had shut Dhaka's international airport on Monday evening, without giving a reason.

There were widespread calls by protesters to ensure Hasina's close allies remained in the country.

'Major vacuum'

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, warned that Hasina's departure "would leave a major vacuum" and that the country was in "uncharted territory".

"The coming days are critical," he said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Monday for an "orderly and peaceful" transition towards an elected government. Former colonial ruler Britian and the United States urged "calm".

Demonstrations began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.

The protests escalated despite the scheme being scaled back by Bangladesh's top court.

The latest violence took the total number of people killed since protests began to at least 366, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and doctors at hospitals.

Soldiers and police in several cases did not intervene to stem Sunday's protests, unlike during the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.

Bangladesh has a long history of coups.

The military declared an emergency in January 2007 after widespread political unrest and installed a military-backed caretaker government for two years.

Hasina then ruled Bangladesh from 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government was accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

(AFP)