Bangladesh’s 7 January election saw the ruling Awami League retain power and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina begin her fourth consecutive term. The outcome was never in doubt, with the main opposition party refusing to run over well-founded concerns about electoral integrity. Voting was preceded by an intense pre-election crackdown that saw thousands of opposition activists jailed and protests met with violence. The lack of electoral choice was reflected in ballots padded with fake opposition candidates and a plummeting turnout. The ruling party must accept that its victory lacks credibility and commit to reversing its authoritarian trajectory.

Bangladesh just held an election. But it was far from an exercise in democracy.

Sheikh Hasina won her fourth consecutive term, and fifth overall, as Bangladesh’s prime minister in the general election held on 7 January. The result was never in doubt, with the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), boycotting the vote over the ruling Awami League’s refusal to let a caretaker government oversee the election. This practice, abolished by the Awami League government in 2011, was, the BNP asserted, the only way to ensure a free and fair vote.

The BNP’s boycott was far from the only issue. A blatant campaign of pre-election intimidation saw government critics, activists and protesters subjected to threats, violence and arrests in the months before the vote. Opposition activists had their homes raided and police reportedly harassed their family members.

The criminal-justice system does the ruling party’s bidding. At the government’s urging, court cases against opposition members were accelerated so they’d be locked away before the election, resulting in a reported 800-plus convictions between September and December 2023. It’s alleged that torture and ill-treatment were used against opposition activists to force confessions. There have been reports of deaths in police custody. Others have gone missing.

Police banned protests and blocked roads to prevent them, and when a rare mass opposition protest went ahead on 28 October police used rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades. Following the protest, thousands more opposition supporters were detained on fabricated charges. As well as violence from the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) – an elite unit notorious for excessive and lethal force – and other elements of the police force, opposition supporters faced attacks by Awami League supporters with clubs, hammers and sticks, with police standing by and doing nothing.

Journalists have been smeared, attacked and harassed, including when covering protests and in retaliation for questioning Awami League politicians.

As a direct result of the ruling party’s pre-election crackdown, in December 2023 Bangladesh’s civic space rating was downgraded to closed by the CIVICUS Monitor, our collaborative research project that tracks the health of civic space in every country. This, the lowest category, places Bangladesh among the world’s worst human rights offenders, including China, Iran and Russia.

Civil society’s concerns were echoed in November 2023 by United Nations (UN) human rights experts who expressed their alarm at political violence, arrests, mass detention, judicial harassment, excessive force and internet restrictions.

Voices from the frontline

Dr Mubashar Hasan is a Bangladesh-born social justice activist and a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, Norway.

 

Judicial harassment is rife. In September, the New York Times reported that 2.5 million opposition activists faced judicial cases, with each facing multiple cases and some up to 400. Journalists have found that many cases against the opposition were fabricated. The police have even reportedly filed cases against BNP activists who were long dead or living abroad.

On 28 October 2023, the opposition organised a massive rally. To stop this becoming a full-blown people-led movement, the government aggressively repressed it. A few opposition activists retaliated and then the government blamed the violence on the opposition. At least 15 people were killed, including two police officers. More than 20,000 opposition activists have been incarcerated since late October.

This election-related violence is largely the result of state violence. Human Rights Watch recently described the ongoing developments as an autocratic crackdown. Freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly are being restricted and forcefully violated, affecting the legitimacy of the election process. Extremely politicised state institutions are being used as an extension of the ruling party, a trend many argue could lead to the materialisation of a totalitarian state.

The space for civil society in Bangladesh is closed. Civil society organisations are free to operate only as long as they don’t challenge the ruling system.

Just as in any autocratic country, there is an increasing activism going on in the diaspora. There are many Bangladeshi activists living in Australia, as well as in Malaysia, Sweden, the USA and elsewhere. BNP leader Tarique Rahman lives in exile in London.

People in the diaspora are using the leverage that comes with living under democratic governments to spread information about what happens in Bangladesh. Those diaspora activists argue that it is their duty to expose what is going on back home.

There are also key investigative journalists working from exile. A site called Netra News runs out of Malmö in Sweden, and it is still quite influential in exposing serious illegal acts by the government. There are several emerging YouTube commentators and analysts who have been very courageous. They have millions of followers.

At this point, not much is in the hands of Bangladeshi people. Without effective external pressure towards democracy, change is unlikely. Civil society’s work will only become more challenging in Bangladesh as the government steps up its repression.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Mubashar. Read the full interview here.

Exiles under attack

Such is the severity of the closure of Bangladesh’s civic space that many of the strongest dissenting voices now come from those in exile. But even speaking out from outside Bangladesh doesn’t necessarily bring safety. As a way of putting pressure on exiled activists, the authorities are harassing their families.

Activists aren’t safe even in the halls of the UN. A discussion organised by civil society in the wings of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in November was disrupted by government supporters with Adilur Rahman Khan, a leader of the Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar, subjected to verbal attacks.

Khan is currently on bail while appealing against a two-year jail sentence imposed on him and another Odhikar leader in September 2023 in retaliation for their work in documenting extrajudicial killings. Odhikar was deregistered by the authorities in 2022. Following the session in Geneva, Khan was further vilified in online news sites for tarnishing the image of Bangladesh and accused of presenting false information.

Voices from the frontline

Zaman Ashraf is a Bangladeshi human rights defender who currently lives in exile in Hong Kong.

 

When you continue working in exile, you sacrifice a lot as a person and as a family. There have been many cases of activists who’ve had members of their extended family arbitrarily detained. They’ve been harassed and thrown in jail. For example, a mother of an exiled journalist receives regular visits by security forces at midnight or in early morning, inquiring about her son’s journalistic activities. The family has no part in the person’s professional work, yet they are harassed because of it. My family shouldn’t be punished even if I have committed a crime. But the families of activists are punished although they haven’t even committed a crime. Activists pay a high price to continue their work.

In my case, it has not been easy. I haven’t been able to go back to Bangladesh in more than a decade. While in exile, you lose family members – sometimes permanently. The only thing that keeps you going is the hope of seeing changes finally happen. People need democracy, justice and accountability.

But I’m not alone. Many collective efforts have been undertaken, including by international organisations. There is very little one person can do individually. Only our collective efforts will be able to bring the changes to the institutions we need. Once that happens, the sacrifices will have been worth it.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Zaman. Read the full interview here.

All-out assault

It isn’t only the political opposition and their supporters coming under attack. Hasina and her government have made much of their economic record, with Bangladesh now one of the world’s biggest garment producers. But that success is largely based on some of the lowest wages in the world. Like many countries, Bangladesh is currently experiencing rising inflation, and garment workers’ recent efforts to improve their situation have also been met with repression.

Workers protested and went on strike in October and November 2023 after a government-appointed panel raised the minimum wage for garment sector workers to a far lower level than unions demanded. Up to 25,000 people took part in protests, forcing at least 100 factories to close. They were met with police violence, including rubber bullets, teargas and batons. At least two people were killed and many more were injured. Workers also experienced workplace violence and were threatened with dismissal in retaliation for mobilising.

Seemingly no one is safe. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank that has enabled millions to access small loans to improve their lives, was recently convicted of labour law offences in a trial his supporters denounced as politically motivated. Yunus has long been a target for criticism and threats from the ruling party, seemingly penalised for being a public figure who doesn’t support it.

Democracy in name only

The quality of Bangladesh’s elections has dramatically declined since Hasina and the Awami League returned to power in the last reasonably free and fair election in 2008. Each election since has been characterised by serious irregularities and pre-voting crackdowns as the incumbents have done everything they could to hold onto power.

What was seen in 2023 was a further intensification of the tactics that preceded the previous election in December 2018, which also included a campaign of mass arrests of opposition activists, the repression of protests and the restriction of media. That delivered a landslide.

But this time, while the Awami League victory was as huge as ever, turnout was down. It was almost half its 2018 level, at only 41.8 per cent, and even that may be an inflated figure. The lack of participation reflected a widespread understanding among Bangladeshis that the Awami League’s victory was a foregone conclusion: many Awami League supporters didn’t feel they needed to vote, and many opposition backers had no one to vote for.

People knew that many supposedly independent candidates were in reality Awami League supporters running as a pseudo-opposition to offer some appearance of electoral competition. The party that came second, the Jatiya Party, with 11 of parliament’s 300 seats compared to the Awami League’s 222, is also allied with the ruling party. All electoral credibility and legitimacy have now been strained past breaking point.

The government has faced predictably no pressure to abide by democratic rules from key allies such as China and India, although the once-supportive US government has shifted its position in recent years, including by imposing sanctions on some RAB leaders and threatening to withhold visas for Bangladeshis deemed to have undermined the electoral process.

If the economic situation deteriorates further, discontent is sure to grow, and with other spaces blocked, protests and their violent repression will surely follow. International partners, including the European Union, must urge the Bangladeshi government to find a way to avoid this. More violence and intensifying authoritarianism can’t be the way forward. Instead Bangladesh should be urged to start the journey back towards democracy.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • The government must unconditionally and immediately release all opposition leaders and members, protesters and critics detained on fabricated charges and review their cases to prevent further harassment.
  • The government must immediately and impartially investigate attacks on journalists and all instances of excessive force, torture or ill-treatment or deaths in custody committed by security forces.
  • The government must refrain from violence in the post-election period and take steps to renew Bangladesh’s commitment to democracy and human rights, as called for by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Cover photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images

Bangladesh is currently on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which draws attention to countries where there is a serious and rapid decline in respect for civic space.