- The ban will take effect immediately.
- JI denounces the ban as “unconstitutional and illegal.”
- Government is playing blame game using state machinery, says JI chief
Bangladesh on Thursday banned the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir and other associated organisations under the anti-terrorism law. Anadolu Agency he reported, citing an official order.
The ban will take effect immediately, according to a notice published in the official gazette of the Ministry of the Interior.
The government's move comes as the South Asian nation has witnessed massive student protests since last month, which have left at least 150 people dead.
The move, described as “unconstitutional and illegal” by Jamaat-e-Islami, comes after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blamed Jamaat-e-Islami and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for the violence that forced her to impose the curfew.
In a statement issued earlier, Jamaat had condemned the decision of the ruling Awami League-led alliance as “illegal, extrajudicial and unconstitutional”.
“Using state machinery, they are levelling allegations against Jamaat and other opposition parties,” said Shafiqur Rahman, chief of the party, which, along with the opposition, had denied the government's claim that they were fomenting violence.
In 2013, a court ruling barred Jamaat from running in elections because its registration as a political party conflicted with the South Asian nation's secular constitution.
Bangladesh shut down the internet and sent in the army to enforce a nationwide curfew as protests spread after they began at universities and colleges in June.
Thousands of people were injured when security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets.
The violence was the biggest test Hasina, 76, has faced since winning a fourth consecutive term in January elections that were boycotted by the BNP and also marred by deadly protests.
He led his party to victory in the 1996 elections, serving a five-year term before regaining power in 2009, never to lose again.
Rights groups and critics say Hasina has become increasingly autocratic during her past 15 years in power, marked by arrests of political opponents and activists, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings – charges she denies.
The United Nations, international human rights groups, the United States and Britain have criticised Dhaka's use of force against protesters and called on it to uphold the right to peaceful protest.
Members of the Students Against Discrimination group, who had agreed to suspend their agitation after the Supreme Court scrapped most quotas on July 21, said they would march on Wednesday to protest the recent deaths, arrests and intimidation.
Human rights groups have condemned authorities for arresting nearly 10,000 people in the past two weeks accused of taking part in clashes and destroying state property.
“We will also demand a United Nations investigation into the violence,” Mohammad Mahin Sarkar, coordinator of the quota reform movement, said in a statement.
In response, Anisul Huq, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, said Dhaka had launched a judicial inquiry to investigate thoroughly.
Experts have blamed the unrest on stagnant private-sector job growth and high youth unemployment rates that have made government jobs more attractive at a time when inflation is hovering around 10%.
