Thousands of people take to the streets in Bangladesh in demonstrations called by opposition parties

11 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Thousands of people took to the streets of the Bangladeshi capital, Dacca, on Wednesday in various demonstrations called by opposition parties to demand the departure of the ruling Awami League party, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

“The people of Bangladesh have woken up. We now need to revive more to materialize the dreams of the Liberation War and build a truly popular Bangladesh to guarantee a beautiful future for our children,” the general secretary of the Nationalist Party of Bangladesh defended at a rally. Bangladesh (BNP), Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

In this sense, he has indicated that the objective of the current government is to restore the politics of a single party. “We will not let the government do it. We will move forward together with the people to ensure the fall of this regime,” he sentenced, according to the newspaper ‘Prothom Alo’.

BNP Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas also participated in the rally, while other opposition parties, alliances and organizations have held sit-ins in different parts of the capital and the country to demand elections in 2023.

While the BNP and its allies have announced new protests for January 16, by contrast, the ruling party, the Awami League, has held demonstrations in Dhaka to support the government, which has been in power since 2009, according to ‘Dhaka Tribune’.

In December, the BNP General Secretary, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, as well as the party’s Standing Committee member, Mirza Abbas, were arrested in two separate raids in the capital, Dhaka, as part of various demonstrations organized by the opposition and which resulted in one death and dozens of injuries.

That same month, a Dhaka court jailed 445 people in connection with marches called by the opposition party. BNP leaders have reported that more than 3,500 party supporters have been detained in recent years.

In fact, the NGO Human Right Watch (HRW) expressed its disapproval of the escalation of the repression of the Government of Bangladesh against opposition groups. Thus, he 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.