On 12 February 2026 elections were held in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) took 212 seats, with an alliance led by Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami taking 77 seats and becoming the official opposition. The Election Commission put voter turnout at 59.44%.

The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), Bangladesh’s oldest party, founded on 23 June 1949, was banned from participating in the election. The BAL was the leading force in the 1971 liberation struggle which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh, and was last in power between 2009 and 2024. In May 2025, the unelected interim administration led by Dr Muhammad Yunus had issued a decree that banned the BAL. All political activity, public meetings, publications, social media content and even any publicity in support of the party were criminalised. Despite a formal United Nations communication sent on 29 December 2025 raising serious concerns about the banning, on 8 April 2026 the BNP-led government passed the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, carrying the ban into permanent law.

Vijay Prashad and Atul Chandra describe the 2026 election as ‘a political process that began… in the strategic calculations of sections of the Bangladesh oligarchy and their patrons in the Global North’ giving the following further context: ‘The United States, which has sought to reassert control over the Western Hemisphere, is trying with all its instruments to prevent the growth of sovereignty across Asia and Africa as well…The Awami League’s primary offence, from Washington’s perspective was…its strategic autonomy: its balancing act between Beijing and Washington, its acceptance of Chinese infrastructure investment, and its resistance to full integration into the US-led Indo-Pacific architecture…For Washington, Bangladesh is a critical node in the containment geography being constructed around China, linking the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asian maritime chokepoints.’

The two writers characterise the difference between the two parties, ‘The BNP, rooted in the military-bureaucratic establishment rather than the Awami League’s secular-nationalist tradition, has historically been amenable to US preferences on market liberalization and security cooperation.’1

The previous elections on 7 January 2024 were won by the Awami League and boycotted by the BNP, in what looks like an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Awami League government. A violent uprising in July 2024, making use of youth protests against a quota system for public sector jobs to mount a regime change operation, resulted in the flight of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5 to India where she remains, and the 8 August 2024 appointment of an interim government under Muhammad Yunus.

Not for the first time, the United Nations showed itself as far from impartial. On 12 February 2025 United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk reported on a human rights office mission to Bangladesh starting on 16 September 2024. Introducing the lengthy report, he said, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that officials of the former government, its security and intelligence apparatus, together with violent elements associated with the former ruling party, committed serious and systematic human rights violations.” Türk is an Austrian lawyer who has worked in the UN since 1995 and has been the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights since October 2022. In taking this approach, he gave the Interim Government backing in the actions that would follow.2

On 3 March 2025 the Awami League published comments on the UN Human Rights Report. The response said, ‘The Awami League wholly rejects the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) report and serious flaws in its investigation methodology and calls for a new and impartial inquiry. Bangladesh desperately needs an investigation that accounts for and properly documents the unrest that has run rampant up to and since August 15. This would include the organised killings and unlawful detentions of members and supporters of Awami League (the country’s biggest and oldest political party), the escalating attacks on religious and ethnic minorities, the suppression of media outlets and individual journalists, and the creeping radical Islamisation of the country’s cultural and political life.

‘…A critical weakness of the report is that it does not cover the post-August 15 period, meaning that many of its observations fail to address the Bangladeshi people’s most urgent concerns. The OHCHR report itself acknowledges this flaw in its terms of reference. It also admits that it cannot supply levels of proof that would satisfy a criminal court that its allegations of Awami League involvement in human rights abuses are true. For the record, Awami League categorically denies and rejects the report’s claims that some of its senior leaders, including the Prime Minister herself, were personally responsible for or directed the use of lethal force against crowds; or were involved in or had knowledge of mistreatment of detainees.’

‘These allegations rest entirely on biased evidence supplied by the Interim Government, while other records have been withheld that would exculpate the Awami League and incriminate members and supporters of the Interim Government. For example, the OHCHR flagrantly errs in accusing Awami League government of failing to take steps to seek accountability for the breakdowns of discipline among some of those tasked with law enforcement that led to regrettable deaths, violence and destruction in late July. In fact, in early August the Government publicly established an inquiry commission, later dissolved by Dr Yunus, to investigate those matters. Moreover, and at the same time, the UN itself was invited by the Awami League-led Government to observe events on the ground.’

‘Those who have lost their lives or continue to endure violence and discrimination deserve better than this OHCHR report. Victims include the scores of policemen brutally murdered in undocumented lynchings, hangings, burnings and other revenge attacks during and after last year’s uprising. The OHCHR references just 44 such killings but suppressed documentary evidence shows there were many more. Bangladesh needs a fully independent review carried out by an impartial investigator without fear of reprisals.’3

On 10 November 2025 Doughty Street Chambers sent an appeal on behalf of Sheikh Hasina, to the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions. It set out, ‘…serious concerns about the lack of fair trial rights and due process issues arising from her in absentia prosecution before the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)…In July 2025, Sheikh Hasina and two other senior officials were indicted by Bangladesh’s ICT for alleged crimes against humanity said to have arisen from the government’s response in Bangladesh in July and August 2024….A verdict is due soon with Sheikh Hasina facing an almost certain sentence of death. The Urgent Appeal highlights how the ICT has chosen only to prosecute members of Sheikh Hasina’s former government. It is said that the interim government has decided that those who made the “uprising successful will not face prosecution…for their acts between July 15 and August 8”’.

‘The Urgent Appeal sets out how the trials before the ICT are being carried in an environment charged with political vengeance, under an unelected interim government which itself has no democratic mandate, and raises multiple serious concerns regarding violations of Sheikh Hasina’s right to a fair trial, including that:’

‘Sheikh Hasina has not been tried by an “independent and impartial tribunal” as required by Article 14 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The political association of the ICT’s judges which tried Sheikh Hasina’s case with political parties opposed to her Awami League raise serious questions of both actual and perceived bias. Moreover, the Chief Prosecutor also suffers from the appearance of bias, himself having appeared at political rallies calling for the ban of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.’

‘Sheikh Hasina has been tried in absentia for very serious crimes…She has received no formal notification of the charges against her. Moreover, lawyers who have previously acted on behalf of or associated with the Awami League have been attacked and are unable to carry out their professional duties without intimidation. As a result, Sheikh Hasina is being represented by a state appointed lawyer with whom she has had no communication and given no instructions.’

‘Against the backdrop of such serious fair trial and due process violations, the imposition of any death sentence following such a manifestly unfair trial would effectively amount to summary execution and a clear violation to the right to life guaranteed by Article 6 of the ICCPR.’3

Sheikh Hasina was convicted and sentenced to death on 17 November 2025. The Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (BICC) was set up in 1973 to try those accused of violent crimes during the nine-month long 1971 Bangladesh independence struggle. The United Nations communication to the Yunus government of 29 December 2025, after Sheikh Hasina’s conviction, also raised ‘serious concern’ about fair trial guarantees before the BICC.

The persecution of the Awami League has continued under the BNP government. At time of writing the most recent and possibly most striking example is the arrest of Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, 59, who had been the first female parliamentary speaker of Bangladesh, elected on April 30, 2013 and holding the post till her resignation in September 2024. Advances for women were one of the chief achievements of Sheikh Hasina’s government. In contrast, in the 2026 elections, only a tiny number of female candidates were successful. The BNP fielded 10 female candidates, the National Citizen Party just two, and Jamaat-e-Islami none.

Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world and one of the most densely populated with a population of over 174 million. Its origins lie in the British partition of India.

Progress Publisher’s Short History of the World summarises, ‘Towards the close of 1945 and early in 1946 anti-imperialist and anti-feudal actions of the peasants [in India] grew in number…Great Britain was no longer able to exercise complete sway over India. The partitioning of India into two states seemed to the British to be the only way of controlling the anti-imperialist movement and maintaining their status…’4 On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Bill, which partitioned India into two independent Dominions, India and Pakistan. Palme Dutt quotes the Soviet Zhukov, “Britain is being forced to take a page from America’s book and copy her policy in the Philippines – to give a nominal false freedom. In other words, to clear out so as to remain.” The evil of partition, according to Palme Dutt, was that it ‘divided state boundaries, not on lines of linguistic, cultural or national divisions, but on lines of religious division…it meant the reproduction and multiplication of this division in every town and village area of India…[it] let loose the most hideous communal conflicts, massacres, and flight of millions of refugees without parallel in Indian history.’5

In the partition of India, East Bengal was allocated to Pakistan, with the territory of India between the two parts. Even before partition, in 1946, Palme Dutt describes ‘the Moslem League “Direct Action” Day in Calcutta in August followed by the riots in East Bengal in October, and the anti-Moslem riots in Bihar, all resulting in thousands of killed, many more thousands wounded and rendered homeless, wholesale massacre, arson, looting and horrors beyond record.’

In the process of partition ‘The boundary dispute between Bengal and Pakistan culminated in massacre and destruction on religious grounds unprecedented in scale. It is estimated that over 500,000 lost their lives, while the number of those who suffered one way or another during the strife and shifting of populations reached 12,000,000’.4

From the start, the fusion of western Pakistan and East Bengal was an uncomfortable one. While East Bengal had a slightly higher population, the political power and economic advantages lay in West Pakistan, with the leaders even insisting that Urdu should be the only official language, when the vast majority of people in East Bengal spoke Bengali and were proud of the long cultural Bengali tradition. The Language Movement in resistance began in 1948.

The militaristic Pakistan regime’s ‘methods of dictatorship’ as Palme Dutt put it added to the dissatisfaction. ‘When in the East Pakistan elections in 1954, the anger of the people routed the discredited Moslem League leadership and returned the United Front [which included the Awami League] on the basis of a progressive programme with 93 per cent of the votes, the ministry thus elected was immediately deposed from office by fiat from above (under section 92 of the Government of India Act of 1935, the act passed by the British Tory government of Baldwin) and a military dictatorship was established.’5

In 1970 in the first general election based on universal suffrage in Pakistan’s history, the Awami League won 288 of the 300 seats in East Pakistan’s provincial assembly. The refusal of the Pakistan military junta to transfer power led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. On the night of March 25 1971, the Pakistan military launched Operation Searchlight, taking military control of the major cities in East Pakistan, eliminating all opposition through systematic killings, with some estimations counting as many as three million deaths. The Bengalis mounted a well organised guerrilla campaign, but it was the intervention of India in December 1971, after Pakistan, without provocation, raided its airfields, that quickly put paid to Pakistan’s campaign, with the surrender of 93,000 members of the Pakistan armed forces6

Main Currents of Indian History says, ‘In 1971, President Nixon’s partisan attitude during the Indo-Pakistan war and the sending of a task force of the US Seventh Fleet into the Indian Ocean to assist Pakistan in boosting its morale, brought India closer to Russia with whom she signed the Treaty of Friendship in 1971.’6 Bangladesh too had good relations with the Soviet Union.

The path of Bangladesh continued to be marred by violence. In 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, joint founder of the Awami League and Prime Minister of Bangladesh, was assassinated with all the members of his family who were in Dhaka at the time, even down to his ten year old son.7 His daughter, Sheikh Hasina, and her sister, only escaped because they were not in Bangladesh at the time.

It is significant that in the riots of 2024, the Independence Museum was vandalised and looted. The museum has still not been restored. It included a replica of the table on which the Eastern Commander of the Pakistan Army signed the surrender document on December 16 1971, and a fountain ‘symbolising the tears of the mothers of millions of martyrs and women who were victims of torture’.8

While Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the new BNP Prime Minister, Tarique Rahman, is the grandson of the founder of the BNP, Ziaur Rahman, whose daughter Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman’s mother, also served three terms as Prime Minister. Lawrence Lifschultz says, “The evidence clearly points to the fact that General Ziaur Rahman had prior knowledge of the coup d’etat” in which Sheikh Mujibur and his family were killed in 1975. (8) After coup and counter coup that year, he became head of state under martial law. In 1978 he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, subsequently facing many coup attempts before his assassination in one of them on 30 May 1981.