New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said mass arrests continue "the cycle of political repression" in Bangladesh, even though the BNP came to power promising to restore human rights and the rule of law.
"Instead, the new government has arbitrarily detained perceived opponents and rolled back human rights safeguards the interim government proposed," said Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, overseeing the work of the Asia division in more than 20 countries.
Pearson said the current ruling party, the Bangladesh National Party, faced severe repression under the Awami League government.
Since being elected in February, it has targeted its own perceived opponents with arbitrary detention and hundreds of Awami League members are currently in jail, mostly without charge, she said.
The international human rights law guarantees freedoms of expression and association for all.
Pearson said past violations of those rights committed when the Awami League was in power cannot justify the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s current violations of the same rights.
She said Bangladeshi history is rife with examples of where such repression can lead.
The mass arrest of attendees at a small left-wing party’s meeting in Dhaka on September 26 is the latest incident in the Bangladesh authorities’ ongoing assault on civil and political rights, said the Asia Director of the New York-based rights body.
She said police took around 290 supporters of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal into custody after members of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s youth wing, the Jubo Dal, claimed the gathering was a “secret” meeting of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which is banned.
A court remanded 27 of those arrested to custody, because it was alleged they had chanted “Joy Bangla” (Victory to Bengal), a slogan associated with the Awami League.
The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal was part of a 14-party alliance, led by the Awami League, that governed Bangladesh from 2009 until 2024, when it was toppled by student led protests in which hundreds were killed by security forces.
Police have repeatedly raided alleged gatherings of Awami League supporters.
On September 26, the same day as the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal meeting, police in Barisal detained 12 Awami League activists for allegedly holding a “secret” meeting to “plan sabotage”; two days later, 15 were arrested in Dhaka under the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Act on similar allegations.
In both cases those detained said they had gathered to mark Hasina’s birthday.
During Hasina’s authoritarian rule, the HRW said, there were widespread and grave rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and the arbitrary detention of political opponents.