Bangladesh’s Islamists are readying to make political positive aspects after being crushed for years by the federal government that was overthrown in a mass rebellion final 12 months, rallying hardline loyalists for eagerly anticipated elections.
“We are pretty confident about entering the parliament in the next election,” Muhammad Mamunul Haque, joint secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam, an influential coalition of Islamic faculties, instructed AFP in an interview.
The coalition will maintain a mass rally within the capital Dhaka on Saturday (May 3, 2025) in what is predicted to be one in all their greatest public exhibits of power for years as religiously fuelled activism positive aspects reputation.
Mr. Haque, 52, mentioned the group will push to implement sharia, or Islamic legislation, and believes the group’s community of tens of 1000’s of seminaries — claiming to have some 500,000 members — means they will do nicely if the vote “is free and fair”.
Hefazat-e-Islam is an alliance of various events and Muslim organisations, together with Mr. Haque’s Khilafat-e-Majlish get together.
A massively influential stress group, it has been courted by political events because it was based 15 years in the past.
No date has been set for elections however caretaker chief Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who heads the interim authorities, has promised polls will probably be held by June 2026 on the newest.
Strength after revolution
The South Asian nation of some 170 million individuals final held elections in January 2024, when Sheikh Hasina gained a fourth time period as Prime Minister within the absence of real opposition events.
Her opponents boycotted the vote after a crackdown.
Ms. Hasina, who was blamed for in depth human rights abuses, took a tricky stand towards Islamist actions throughout her autocratic 15-year rule.
Thousands have been detained, together with Mr. Haque, who was arrested in 2021 and spent three years in jail.
He confronted round a dozen fees after Islamists tried to protest towards a go to by Ms. Hasina’s key ally Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Hindu-nationalist chief of neighbouring India.
Ms. Hasina fled to New Delhi in August as crowds stormed her palace.
She stays in self-imposed exile in India, infuriating Bangladeshis decided that she face trial for alleged “mass murder”.
Islamist teams have gained power with Hasina gone and have more and more sought to impose their imaginative and prescient on the broader inhabitants.
That has sparked worries from smaller teams, together with Muslim Sufi worshippers and the Hindu minority, who collectively account for lower than a tenth of the inhabitants.
Women, particularly, have expressed concern.
Islamists have demanded an finish to a swath of actions, together with cultural occasions deemed “anti-Islamic” — from music to theatre festivals, girls’s soccer matches and kite-flying celebrations.
Mobs have vandalised Sufi shrines. Supporters of Haque’s Khilafat-E-Majlis group stormed a public library final month and carted away lots of of books earlier than returning them.
Golam Rabbani, a pacesetter of Khilafat-E-Majlish’s youth wing, mentioned they had focused books that “promoted atheism”, together with Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and the nationwide poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.
‘Implement sharia’
Hefazat-e-Islam’s rally on Saturday follows two days of marches by different key events who’re additionally searching for their assist.
Those embrace the highly effective Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), anticipated to be the most important political drive, and the National Citizens Party (NCP), fashioned by college students who spearheaded the rebellion towards Hasina.
It additionally contains the most important single Islamist political get together, Jamaat-e-Islami.
Haque mentioned the group opposed a authorities girls’s fee and its suggestions to finish discriminatory provisions, together with equal inheritance rights for women and men.
“The commission is disrespectful to Islamic family traditions,” Haque mentioned.
“It seems they want to destroy the religious values attached to marriage and divorce and want to establish a Western society.”
Muslim-majority Bangladesh has a structure based mostly on the 4 pillars of nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism.
However, Mr. Haque mentioned his supporters wished Islamic legislation.
“We will implement sharia,” Mr. Haque mentioned, insisting all could be handled pretty.
“Everything will be guided by the Koran… under an Islamic welfare state, all, regardless of their faith, will be treated justly.”
That would come with capital punishment for blasphemy towards Islam.
“We demand death sentences for speaking against Allah, tarnishing the image of the Prophet, and offending Muslims,” Mr. Haque mentioned.
“There is no room for negotiation in this regard.”
Published – May 03, 2025 11:41 am IST
