Bangladesh’s ousted PM Hasina sentenced to death for students crackdown

Note: BP really needs a Bangladeshi contributor so we can get some analysis of other South Asian countries rather than interminable back and forth about India and Pakistan

From DAWN:

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

The ruling comes months ahead of parliamentary elections expected to be held in early February.

Hasina’s Awami League party has been barred from contesting and it is feared that Monday’s verdict could stoke fresh unrest ahead of the vote.

The International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court located in the capital Dhaka, delivered the guilty verdict amid tight security and in Hasina’s absence after she fled to India in August 2024.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. Sheikh Hasina was a dictator (and arguably an Indian puppet) so I’m not particularly fond of her. She does need to pay for her crimes. However, I don’t believe in the death penalty. This step seems to be an extremely problematic one for Bangladesh.

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Kabir

I am Pakistani-American. I am a Hindustani classical vocalist and ethnomusicologist. I hold a B.A from George Washington University (Dramatic Literature, Western Music) and an M.Mus (Ethnomusicology) from SOAS, University of London. My dissertation “A New Explanation for the Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan” has recently been published by Aks Publications (Lahore 2024). Samples of my singing can be heard on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Le1RnQQJUeKkkXj5UCKfB View all posts by Kabir

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Rifat Ahmad Syed

26 days ago

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD
WHICH OLD WITCH?
THE WICKED WITCH!
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Her and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman can burn in hell. Siraj Sikder and Ziaur Rahman are laughing in their graves.

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X.T.M

Reply to Rifat Ahmad Syed

Did SMR win independence for Bangladesh?

sbarrkum

25 days ago

Much like Netanyahu being indicted for war crimes nothing much will happen, For the most part symbolic in that Hasina has to be extradited to Bangladesh to face death penalty. I doubt India and many other countries will extradite Hasina to dace tribunals in Bangladesh

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Reply to sbarrkum

Of course, India is not going to send Hasina back to Bangladesh. So this death sentence cannot be implemented. Still I think the sentence itself is problematic.

As a Pakistani, perhaps I’m oversensitive to ex-PM’s being sentenced to death. Zulfikar Bhutto’s hanging was an tragic incident in Pakistan’s history.

24 days ago

“The Trial of Sheikh Hasina: The Judgement and the Justice” by Sultan Mohammed Zakaria

https://counterpointbd.substack.com/p/the-trial-of-sheikh-hasina-the-judgment