Bangladesh Heading Towards One-party Rule: NYT

NEW YORK, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Sep, 2023 ) :Bangladesh, under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government, is sliding towards one-party state, a leading American newspaper reported Saturday, citing opposition leaders, analysts and activists.

"Bangladesh's multiparty democracy is being methodically strangled in crowded courtrooms across this country of 170 million people," The New York Times said in a dispatch from Dhaka, headlined: Quietly Crushing a Democracy: Millions on Trial in Bangladesh.

Times' correspondent Mujib Mashal wrote: "Nearly every day, thousands of leaders, members and supporters of opposition parties stand before a judge. Charges are usually vague, and evidence is shoddy, at best. But just months before a pivotal election pitting them against the ruling Awami League, the immobilizing effect is clear.

"About half of the five million members of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are embroiled in politically motivated court cases, the group estimates. The most active leaders and organizers face dozens, even hundreds, of cases. Lives that would be defined by raucous rallies or late-night strategizing are instead dominated by lawyers' chambers, courtroom cages and, in Dhaka, the torturously snail-paced traffic between the two...

"One recent morning, a party leader, Saiful Alam Nirob, was ushered into Dhaka's 10-story magistrate court in handcuffs. Mr. Nirob faces between 317 and 394 cases � he and his lawyers are unsure exactly how many. Outside the court, a dozen supporters � facing an additional 400 cases among them � waited in an alley whose bustle was cleared only by intermittent monsoon downpours and the frequent blowing of a police whistle to open the way for another political prisoner.

" 'I can't do a job anymore,' said one of the supporters, Abdul Satar, who is dealing with 60 cases and spends three or four days a week in court. "It's court case to court case.' "In recent years, Bangladesh has been known mostly as an economic success story, with a strong focus on a garment export industry that brought in a steady flow of dollars, increased women's participation in the economy and lifted millions out of poverty. A country once described by American officials as a basket case of famine and disease appeared to be overcoming decades of coups, countercoups and assassinations.

"But under the surface, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has waged a campaign of political consolidation whose goal, opposition leaders, analysts and activists say, is to turn the South Asian republic into a one-party state.

"Over her 14 years in office, she has captured Bangladesh's institutions, including the police, the military and, increasingly, the courts, by filling them with loyalists and making clear the consequences for not falling in line.

"She has wielded these institutions both to smother dissent � her targets have also included artists, journalists, activists and even the Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus � and to carry out a deeply personal campaign of vengeance against her political enemies." The dispatch said, "With an election expected in December or January, the country again feels on the verge of eruption.

The opposition sees the vote as a last fight before what could be its full vanquishing. Ms. Hasina's lieutenants, for their part, say in no uncertain terms that they cannot let the B.N.P. win � "they will kill us" if they come to power, as one aide put it.

"When asked during an interview in her Dhaka office about using the judiciary to harass the opposition, Ms. Hasina sent an aide out of the room to retrieve a photo album. It was a catalog of horrors: graphic pictures of maimed bodies after arsons, bombings and other attacks.

"Bangladesh's economic success story in recent years has overshadowed its slide toward a one-party state.

" 'It is not political, it is not political,' the prime minister said of the court cases, pointing to the visuals as examples of the 'brutality' of the B.N.P. 'It is because of their crime.' "B.N.P. leaders say that about 800 of their members have been killed and more than 400 have disappeared since Ms. Hasina came to power in 2009. In the interview, Ms. Hasina said the B.N.P., when it was in power, had done much the same to her party, jailing and killing her supporters by the thousands.

'They started this,' Ms. Hasina said.

"The story of Bangladesh over the past three decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women � Ms. Hasina, 75, and Khaleda Zia, 77, the leader of the B.N.P. and the country's first female prime minister...

"Just as Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic disrupted global demand, Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food, pushing the country's supply of Dollars perilously low.

" 'It has put tremendous pressure on our economy,' Ms. Hasina said.

"The battered opposition saw an opportunity in anger over rising food prices and power cuts, and, fearing an unfair election, was eager to take the showdown to the streets after Ms. Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the vote.

"During a rare large rally in June, B.N.P. speakers demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners. But as supporters marched across Dhaka, their chants offered an indication of the bubbling tensions: 'Set fire to Hasina's throne" and "A flood of blood will wash away the injustice.' "As the police held back and allowed the rally and march to proceed, ruling-party leaders staged a rival rally where speakers acknowledged that the European Union and the United States were watching Bangladesh's democracy. The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Ms. Hasina's senior security officers and threatened visa restrictions, and American and European officials have made several visits to Bangladesh in recent months.

"A few weeks after the B.N.P. rally, though, an unsettled Ms. Hasina responded with force. When the party's supporters tried to hold another large rally, the police met them with clubs and tear gas � and 500 fresh court cases. The crackdown showed that, even as the West issues warnings, it ultimately has limited sway over a leader who has deftly balanced ties with Asia's two giants, China and India."