Sheikh Hasina has just announced that she plans to put the opposition party’s leader, Khaleda Zia, on trial for violence – two days before the bogus January 5 elections, and one week after she put Zia under house arrest. Zia has pleaded with voters to boycott the polls, because without a caretaker government the polls held on Sunday will be farcical. It seems that Hasina is becoming more and more desperate to sequester Zia, her party and the 20 other political outfits supporting the boycott.
The beleaguered opposition leader is under guard in her own home, with dozens of riot police and intelligence agents stationed outside her home and trucks blocking her street; and yet – embarrassingly — the prime minister has repeatedly denied putting her under house arrest, and reports that she is free to leave at any time. And now Hasina has announced that Zia will stand trial. Her contradictory messages and aggressive rhetoric do her no favors during this crucial period during which her every move and word are documented.
Hasina has made matters worse by forbidding the BNP and its coalition from holding a March for Democracy in the capital; in response, Zia has called a boycott of roads, waterways and railways until Monday morning. This escalation will cause unnecessary bloodshed and anguish for the Bangladeshi people, and could have been prevented if the prime minister – the highest position in the land responsible for the welfare of the country’s people — had not violated the people’s basic human right to gather in peaceful protest.
The leader of the country should be doing everything in their power to prevent violence and foster peaceful dialogue, especially given the fact that she is under the international microscope. This means that the prime minister should be inviting the opposition leader to her home to discuss how they can work together to hold free and fair elections, not keeping her under lock and key and threatening her with a bogus murder trial.
