Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Wednesday in various demonstrations called by opposition parties to demand the departure of the ruling Awami League party, led by Prime Minister Shaykh Hasina.
«The people of Bangladesh have woken up. We now need to become more enlivened to materialize the dreams of the Liberation War and build a truly people’s Bangladesh to ensure a beautiful future for our children,» Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has advocated at a rally.
In this regard, he has pointed out that the aim of the present government is to restore one-party politics. «We will not let the government do so. We will move forward together with the people to ensure the downfall of this regime,» he has sentenced, as reported by the daily ‘Prothom Alo’.
BNP Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas also took part in the rally, while other opposition parties, alliances and organizations held sit-ins in different parts of the capital and the country to demand the holding of elections in 2023.
While the BNP and its allies have announced new protests for January 16, on the other hand, the ruling Awami League party has held demonstrations in Dhaka to support the government, which has been in power since 2009, as reported by ‘Dhaka Tribune’.
In December, the secretary general of the BNP, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, as well as the member of the party’s Standing Committee, Mirza Abbas, were arrested in two separate raids in the capital, Dhaka, as part of several demonstrations organized by the opposition which resulted in one death and dozens of injuries.
In the same month, a Dhaka court sent 445 people to jail in connection with marches called by the opposition party. BNP leaders have complained that more than 3,500 party supporters have been arrested in recent years.
In fact, the NGO Human Right Watch (HRW) expressed its disapproval of the escalation of the repression by the Government of Bangladesh against opposition groups. It called on the authorities to respect the rule of law and to protect the right of opposition supporters to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
