More than a decade after being banned by the country’s largest Muslim party by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, Bangladesh has now reinstated its registration.
The Jamaat-e-Islami party can now be officially listed with the Election Commission thanks to Sunday’s Supreme Court ruling, which will allow the interim government to hold its election by June 2020.
The ruling, according to Jamaat-e-Islami lawyer Shishir Monir, would “give the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people” a “democratic, inclusive, and multiparty system.”
Regardless of their ethnicity or religious identity, we hoped that Bangladeshis would support Jamaat and that the parliament would be spirited with constructive debates, Monir told journalists.
Following the ouster of Hasina’s government in August 2013 by a student-led nationwide uprising, the party had filed an appeal for a review of a 2013 high court order revoked its registration.
Hasina, 77, fled to India and is currently facing an absentee trial for her crackdown on protesters last year, which the United Nations described as a “systematic attack” that resulted in the death of up to 1,400 people.
Key figure freed
Following Tuesday’s overturning of a conviction against ATM Azharul Islam, one of the party’s top leaders, the Supreme Court issued a decision regarding Jamaat-e-Islami.
During Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, Islam was sentenced to death in 2014 for rape, murder, and genocide. Pakistan was backed by Jamaat-e-Islami during the war, a position that still elicits resentment from many Bangladeshis today.
After Islam’s conviction was overturned, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Shafiqur Rahman said, “We are not beyond making mistakes,” without stating what he was referring to.
If we commit any wrongdoing, he said, “We seek your pardon.”
The party’s members were Awami League’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who would become Bangladesh’s founding president, in opposition to Hasina’s father.
During her time in power, Hasina outlawed Jamaat-e-Islami and retaliated against its leaders.
Source: Aljazeera
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