5/8/2024–|Last update: 5/8/202411:43 PM (Makkah Time)
Finally, the sheikha gave up. Hasina Wajid (76 years old) from the chair and fled from the angry shouts of the masses, after two decades in which “Noon Al-Nisaa” ruled with an iron fist, according to her opponents.
During the last hours of the rule of the Iron Lady of Bangladesh, student and youth demonstrations had reached the point of no return, and the protesters were pushing back the power and violence of her guards with their bare chests, except for a raging anger and determination to overthrow the rule of the 76-year-old Sheikha and the five mandates that began in 1996.
The page of Hasina’s rule has been turned less than seven months after she celebrated her fourth consecutive term and fifth overall, following her victory in the elections that the country witnessed last January, in which Hasina competed against herself without any real opposition.
But the last month of her rule was different, as popular anger – led by students – hammered a final nail into the coffin of her authority, which was shaking under the feet of angry protesters.
The demonstrations and protests that lasted for a month and five days led to the announcement by the Bangladeshi army that Sheikh Hasina had resigned from power, which is the most polite expression of a military coup, which Hasina had previously tasted the bitter taste of when she was in her twenties when her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of his country, after its separation from Pakistan, was assassinated a few months after the end of the civil war and his assumption of the presidency of Bengal, after he had brought 300,000 people to court on charges of collaborating with Pakistan and committing war crimes.
The young Hasina survived the death that kidnapped her family, as she and her sister Rehana were visiting a European country, and later embarked on a strong political and union path, which took her over time to the presidency of the Awami League party founded by her father Mujibur Rahman, to become over time the second woman to rule Bangladesh after Sheikh Khaleda Zia, who shares with Hasina the widespread accusations of corruption and violence, and that they both came from a ruling family, as Hasina follows in the footsteps of her father, the founder of Bangladesh, while Khaleda follows in the footsteps of her husband, General Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in a military coup in 1981.
She took over Khaleda Zia After that, she became the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and from there she embarked on a political path between trials and house arrest, before ending up as Prime Minister in 1991, then resigning as President in 1996, to end her career as a prisoner on charges of corruption, and disabled with complex and multiple diseases. However, her successor and arch-rival Hasina Wajid did not allow her to leave the country to have her damaged liver transplanted since 2023.
Protests, rebellion, escape
India has ensured Hasina’s safety, so she boarded a military plane and landed at Ahmedabad International Airport in India, an expected and unsurprising destination for many. Just as India’s geography surrounds its neighbor Bangladesh in almost all aspects, its political relations with the Hasina family remain historical and special. These relations date back to the separation of Bengal from Pakistan with strong support from India, which enabled Mujibur Rahman to take power and establish the first secular and pro-Indian regime in the face of its adversary Pakistan.
In her new home in India, Hasina left behind a country inflamed by the policies she implemented during her tumultuous years in power, a long history of bloodshed, and iron-fisted rule, as the anti-dictator youth say, celebrating the fall of the “dictatorship” after more than 300 protesters and a number of police officers were killed.
The protests that began on July 1 entered a new phase on August 3, when students declared civil disobedience. They also turned into a massive popular uprising that spread across the country, demanding the resignation of the seventy-year-old sheikha with Indian features and black-and-white hair, as the country’s crisis and economic and political fluctuations have worsened for years, especially with unemployment reaching more than 18 million unemployed young people, in a severe collapse of her popularity that had been on the rise over the past years, due to her economic policy that liberated her country’s resources and raised the GDP rate to 7%, in a country of 170 million people and multiple nationalities.
It all started with the quota system first introduced more than five decades ago by Sheikh Hasina’s father, then Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to give descendants of those who fought for independence from Pakistan a significant share of public jobs.
The angry protesters say that under this system, 56% of government jobs go to different categories, with 30% allocated to family members of freedom fighters who took part in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, 10% to women, 10% to people from underdeveloped areas, 5% to indigenous people and 1% to people with disabilities.
They see the system as benefiting members of pro-government groups that support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Iron Lady.. A Path of Executions
The last years of Hasina Wajid’s rule were known for the army and police being given a free hand to suppress opponents, and the judiciary being given a free hand to issue death sentences, life sentences, and decades of imprisonment, while a large number of prisoners spend the rest of their lives in the depths of prison cells.
The number of detainees due to the recent protests has reached about 10,000, and the killing of demonstrators has increased, including – according to UNICEF – about 36 children who were killed by gunfire during the demonstrations or in their homes.
According to Amnesty International figures, Bangladesh executed more than a thousand people in 2013, and in 2023, the number of people sentenced to death had exceeded 2,400, awaiting the gallows or the firing squad. Journalists and bloggers also found themselves facing harsh sentences for opinions or posts critical of the government.
In particular, the leaders of the Islamic group in Bangladesh have had a fair share of the executions carried out by Sheikh Hasina in recent years, most notably:
- Abdul Quader Mollah, a prominent Bangladeshi leader and politician, was the first leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party to be executed on charges of involvement in murders during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Mollah was executed on 12 December 2013 at the Central Jail in the capital. Dhakaafter authorities said he was convicted in February 2013 on the charges and sentenced to death accordingly.
- Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, a former minister and secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami in his country, was executed on November 21, 2015, for the torture and murder of Hindu intellectuals. He was executed on the same day as Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, a parliamentarian from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
- Muhammad Qamaruzzaman: He is also a leader in the Jamaat-e-Islami. The death sentence was carried out on him on April 11, 2015, in the central prison in the capital, Dhaka, on charges of participating in the war of secession from Pakistan and causing the deaths of dozens.
- Motiur Rahman Nizami: This elderly sheikh was executed on Tuesday, May 10, 2016, on charges of committing acts of Genocide And cooperation with Pakistan Army During the 1971 secession war, local and international appeals to the authorities failed to dissuade them from carrying out the death sentence.
- Mir Quasem Ali: He was also convicted of what authorities described as war crimes during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, which the court said included the killing and torture of freedom fighters. Mir Quasem Ali was hanged on September 3, 2016, at a maximum-security prison on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.
- Ghulam Azam: The leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh, he was also convicted of “war crimes” during the war of independence from Pakistan.
Ghulam Azam died in prison on October 23, 2014, at the age of 89, after being sentenced to 90 years in prison, two of which he spent in prison before his death.
- Abul Kalam Muhammad Yusuf: One of the greatest scholars of Bangladesh, he holds the title of “Mumtazul Muhaddithin,” the highest rank among the titles of scholars of hadith in his country. He is the former Secretary General of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh, and one of the companions of the famous Pakistani scholar Abul A’la Maududi. He also died in prison on February 9, 2014, due to the exacerbation of multiple illnesses.
In addition to these great symbols, Hasina’s regime executed a significant number of intellectuals, youth and activists, but the strangest thing is always her decision to confiscate the homes of those executed.
While Hasina, after her predecessor Khaleda, became part of the past of the Bengalis who, with all their struggle and sacrifice, kicked away a rule that they saw as having been weighing on their chests for the past decades, and began a new history with the announcement by the army chief, Waqar-uz-Zaman, of Hasina’s resignation, to begin a new page in the era of Bangladesh, which is drenched in wars and blood, and the rule of the Iron Ladies.