Ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina is looking down the barrel at the death penalty, after she was found guilty of crimes against humanity for her involvement in working to suppress the student protests that ultimately felled her government last year.
The catalyst for the protests in Bangladesh was a quota. In 2018, Hasina (prime minister at the time) repealed a quota that allocated 30% of government jobs for the descendants of freedom fighters in the Liberation War, after a nationwide, youth-led movement for quota reform. But in June 2024, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reinstated this quota, sparking widespread backlash.
The central issue with the quota was that it was seen as a way to consolidate power and strengthen Hasina’s government, while graduated students struggled to find jobs and economic opportunity remained scarce for the working and middle classes. With the reinstatement of the quota, students began to peacefully protest on university campuses nationwide.
Yet shortly after protests began, Hasina publicly labelled the student activists as razakars, or traitors, leading to heightened tensions on both sides. Protests expanded beyond quotas to encompass a larger “struggle for democracy and against fascism,”
The government responded by instituting internet bans and curfews with Hasina enabling the Bangladeshi army to shoot on site for even minor infractions (such as curfew violations). According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “thousands of arrests…obvious torture…extrajudicial killings, [and instances of]…security forces storming into hospitals to grab people or harm them” unfolded across the country as the government attempted to stamp out the dissent.
And while tensions did calm down briefly, ultimately, the protests grew in size and boiled over as Bangladeshis grew increasingly frustrated with Hasina and her regime.
Hasina was eventually ousted and forced to flee the nation, taking refuge in India, and prosecutors filed charges against her and her government in the Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).
On Monday, the ICT found Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity, including holding her “responsible for inciting hundreds of extrajudicial killings carried out by law enforcement,” and sentenced her to death. According to CNN, the five charges Hasina faced “primarily related to inciting the murder of the protestors, ordering demonstrators be hanged, and ordering the use of lethal weapons, drones and helicopters to suppress the unrest.”
Hasina is currently taking refuge in India’s capital city of New Delhi. In response to Bangladeshi extradition demands, the Indian government, according to CNN, promised to “engage constructively with all stakeholders” with India’s Ministry of External Affairs releasing a statement reaffirming India’s commitment “to the best interests of the people of Bangladesh, including in peace, democracy, inclusion and stability in that country.”
Both the United Nations and Amnesty International have condemned the use of the death penalty in Hasina’s sentencing.
“This was not a fair trial,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said, according to Amnesty International. “The victims of July 2024 deserve far better. Bangladesh needs a justice process that is scrupulously fair and fully impartial beyond all suspicion of bias and does not resort to order further human rights violations through the death penalty. Only then can genuine and meaningful truth, justice and reparations be delivered.”
Hasina’s sentencing appears to highlight a global trend of rising anger and government trust. Regardless of party or political affiliation, citizens across the world have been expressing their anger and dissatisfaction with their government, whether it be through the spate of recent Gen Z-led protests, the rise of increasingly extreme governments (on either side of the aisle) globally, or drastic actions like this that prove to be excessively harsh.
Amidst all this confusion and turmoil, one thing is for certain: the people of the world are done. Done with complacent governments and complicit governors.
Now, they’re ready for change.
