Awami League President and exiled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that her party’s movement will continue until the resignation of the Yunus administration and restoration of democracy.
“Our movement will continue…until all the prisoners are released and the false cases they are being harassed with are quashed. We will free Bangladesh from terrorism and militants and bring back peace and security to the lives of the people of Bangladesh,” she said during a virtual meeting of the party on Thursday night.
Thanking the party members and the people of the country for making the lockdown programme successful, she said: “We will work for the socio-economic development of Bangladesh and give the people of the country a better life again, where people will live in peace. They will live a beautiful life. This is the goal of our movement.”
She said that members of the Awami League and all the associate organisations, farmers, workers, daily wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, hardworking ordinary people of Bangladesh, intellectuals, businessmen, and people from our different classes and professions have all supported the lockdown program.
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“I sincerely thank everyone in our Awami League and all our friends in the diaspora and abroad, people from all classes and professions, who made this movement successful today.”
Sheikh Hasina said: “What I am observing from our lockdown program is that after Dr. Yunus came to power, the people of Bangladesh were in an uncomfortable environment. There is no justice, no rule of law, and no security for the people.
“The prices of everything have increased, and per capita income has decreased. Industries are closed; millions of workers are unemployed. Farmers do not get a fair price for their produce, and children cannot study. They got relief from this situation [due to the lockdown].”
Buoyed by the widespread adherence to its four-day nonviolent campaign, which culminated in a near-total standstill across Dhaka on Thursday, the Awami League ramped up its mobilisation against the Jamaat-controlled interim government led by US deep state puppet Muhammad Yunus.
The party announced late Thursday a series of escalating actions through November 17, including countrywide protests and demonstrations on November 14 and 15, followed by a complete shutdown on November 16 and 17. The movement, the party vowed, will persist until Yunus’s resignation, framing it as a democratic pushback against what it calls an “illegal” regime mired in corruption, human rights abuses, and economic sabotage.
The rejuvenated spirit stems from the Dhaka lockdown observed on November 13, a day marked by empty streets, halted public transport, and closures of schools, colleges, and offices—many of which preemptively shifted to remote work amid fears of unrest.
Awami League leaders, including the exiled son of party chief Sheikh Hasina, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, had issued an impassioned video plea earlier in the week, urging citizens to shun workplaces, halt bus and rickshaw services, and keep students home as a unified act of non-cooperation.
“This is the way to save the country now,” Joy declared, accusing the Yunus administration of dismantling the economy, unleashing lawlessness, and empowering “Jamaati Razakars” while failing to deliver justice for slain police and activists. He invoked the 1971 Liberation War spirit, calling for collective safety in staying indoors to thwart suppression.
Sheikh Hasina herself lent her voice on Sunday via a virtual address, endorsing the lockdown as a cornerstone for restoring democracy. She lambasted the regime’s violent crackdown on a teachers’ protest in Shahbagh that day—where police fired on demonstrators, injuring 19 and detaining 56, including the association leader—labelling it part of a pattern of “brutal oppression” that includes enforced disappearances, massacres, and impunity for Islamist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami.
The preceding rural processions from November 10 to 12, intended as peaceful mobilisations, drew sharp backlash when police, alongside BNP and Jamaat-Shibir affiliates, unleashed at least 13 arson attacks on buses and 20 cocktail blasts.
Authorities attempted to pin the violence on Awami League through media channels, but public scepticism prevailed, especially given the party’s restraint since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August 2024—no revenge killings or escalations, only measured nonviolent outreach. Instead, the incidents boomeranged, terrorising ordinary citizens and media alike amid state-sponsored mob lynchings, while exposing the regime’s “conspiratorial” tactics to discredit opposition voices.
Security responses were heavy-handed: paramilitary deployments swelled, though half the Bangladesh Army returned to barracks, underscoring the chaos.
These events have only amplified accusations of political persecution. In a stark example, a 14-year-old boy from Bhaluka Upazila in Mymensingh was briefly detained Thursday morning at Dhanmondi 32 near the vandalised Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, which he visited to view its ruins. Police, citing “suspicious” behaviour and conflicting statements—once claiming ties to Chhatra Dal, another to Chhatra Shibir—suspected links to the banned Chhatra League after finding Liberation War books in his bag.
No incriminating evidence emerged from a home search, and the juvenile was released by afternoon, per Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Ramana Division Deputy Commissioner, Md. Masud Alam.
Tensions boiled over at the same site when a mob accosted a woman for chanting “Joy Bangla,” leading to her assault with a green PVC pipe by Janaat Khan, joint coordinator of the National Citizen Party’s (NCP) Dhanmondi unit and a former nurse from Patnitola in Naogaon. Police intervened after a delay, rescuing her and detaining the perpetrator, but the episode ignited outrage over delayed responses and unchecked vigilantism.
Critics, including former State Minister Mohammad Ali Arafat, decried the teenager’s detention and the assault of the woman as emblematic of a “pro-Pakistani” regime stifling history enthusiasts and violating human rights.
Activists said that as the Awami League’s protests against Sheikh Hasina’s ongoing crimes-against-humanity trial intensified, the charges of custodial deaths, extrajudicial killings, and an economic meltdown against the Yunus regime, these incidents underscore a deepening rift. With highways disrupted and cities on edge, the party’s call for all-out non-cooperation signals a protracted battle for accountability and democratic revival.
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