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Hasina asks Bangladeshi people to overthrow Yunus regime, says he’s a traitor
Sheikh Hasina said the brave people of Bangladesh must overthrow the foreign-serving puppet regime led by Muhammad Yunus
NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday urged the people of Bangladesh to overthrow the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus as it cannot ensure free and fair polls, using her first public address to a gathering in India to target the regime in Dhaka less than three weeks before the general election scheduled for February 12.
Hasina also called for an end to acts of violence and lawlessness in Bangladesh and an “ironclad guarantee” for the safety of religious minorities, women and the most vulnerable sections of society. She demanded that the United Nations should conduct a “new and truly impartial investigation” into the events since the fall of her government.
The head of the Awami League party, who has lived in India in self-exile since she fled Bangladesh in the face of widespread student-led protests in August 2024, made the remarks in a pre-recorded audio message played at an event with the theme of “Save democracy in Bangladesh” at the Foreign Correspondents Club. Her address came a day after the start of campaigning for Bangladesh’s election, which the Awami League has been barred from contesting.
Describing Yunus as a “corrupt, power-hungry traitor” who had a hand in a conspiracy to oust her government, Hasina said: “In this grave hour, the entire nation must rise united and galvanised by the spirit of our great Liberation War.
“To overthrow the foreign-serving puppet regime of this national enemy at any cost, the brave sons and daughters of Bangladesh must defend and restore the Constitution written in the blood of martyrs, reclaim our independence, safeguard our sovereignty, and revive our democracy.”
As in several recent addresses to supporters of the Awami League in foreign countries, Hasina emphasised the role that the party played in the 1971 war that led to the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, and called on democratic, progressive and non-communal forces to build a welfare-oriented democratic state and to confront the “treacherous designs of the murderous fascist and his collaborators”.
Hasina outlined five demands from the Awami League, including the restoration of democracy “by removing the illegal Yunus administration”. Bangladesh, she argued, will “never experience free and fair elections until the shadow of the Yunus clique is lifted from the people”.
She called for an end to what she said were “daily acts of violence” and lawlessness to stabilise the country and allow the economy to thrive. There must an “ironclad guarantee ensuring the safety of religious minority groups, women and girls, and the most vulnerable in our society”
All “politically motivated acts of lawfare used to intimidate, silence and jail” journalists and members of the Awami League and opposition parties must end and trust in the judicial system must be restored, she said,
The UN should be invited to “conduct a new and truly impartial investigation into the events of the past year” in order to ensure reconciliation and healing while “rejecting the selfish pursuit of vengeance”, she said.
Hasina’s remarks were seen as a desperate attempt to keep her Awami League in the game, as the upcoming election is widely expected to see the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) emerge as the single largest party, with the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami also expected to make significant political gains. While the Awami League continues to have a large number of supporters, most party leaders have been driven into exile in India and Europe.
Hasina reserved much of her ire for Yunus, contending that he had been unable to prevent a “monstrous onslaught of extremist communal forces and foreign perpetrators”. She added, “The murderous fascist Yunus, a usurer, a money launderer, a plunderer, and a corrupt, power-hungry traitor, has bled our nation dry with his all-consuming paradigms, staining the soul of our motherland.”
She alleged Bangladesh was “plunged into an age of terror” after “Yunus and his anti-state militant accomplices” ousted her government in a “meticulously engineered conspiracy” in August 2024, but provided no evidence to back up her accusation.
“Democracy is now in exile. Human rights have been trampled into the dust. Freedom of the press has been extinguished. Violence, torture, and sexual assault against women and girls remain unchecked,” she said. “Religious minorities face continuous persecution. Law and order have collapsed.”
The event was also addressed, either in-person or virtually, by other Awami League leaders, including former education minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury and former foreign minister AK Abdul Momen, who reiterated a litany of charges against Yunus and contended the upcoming election wouldn’t be free and fair without the involvement of their party.
Hasina has attacked Yunus’s government several times in recent months, usually through video or audio messages posted on social media. The Indian government is yet to respond to Dhaka’s request for her extradition.
