The Worrying Rebirth of Bangladesh's Islamist Party

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The Bangladeshi interim government, led by entrepreneur and Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, overturned a ban on a controversial Islamist political party imposed by former Prime Minister Sheik Hasina, who was ousted last August following massive nationwide protests against her authoritarian rule.

Hasina, who fled to India on August 5th following the Bangladesh Quota protests, banned Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir last August 1st, calling it a “militant and terrorist” organization and blamed its student wing for its involvement in the protests.

The massive protests, spearheaded primarily by university students, began after Hasina and her government, led by the Awami League, introduced a controversial reform on a quota-based system for government job positions where a 30% quota was reinstated for descendants of freedom fighters who fought against Pakistan during Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 that won Bangladesh (then called East Pakistan) its independence.

The country’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced in an official bulletin on August 28th that the interim government repealed the ban on Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, saying there wasn’t any evidence connecting the party to terrorism or violence. With the ban lifted, the party can continue its activities, but it would still need to register with the Bangladeshi Election Commission before participating in elections.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has been banned from taking part in elections since 2013 when the Election Commission canceled its registration after it ruled that the party’s charter violated the constitution by opposing secularism, a decision upheld by the country’s High Court.

Asif Nazrul, the interim government’s law adviser, argued that Hasina’s ban on Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami was not based on ideology but was politically motivated. 

Mia Ghulam Parwar, Jamaat-e-Islami’s secretary-general, welcomed the decision in an interview with the Voice of America’s Bangla Service, adding that the ban was "illegal, as it was initiated by an illegal government."

"We made a demand to the present interim government to revoke it. ... The government did justice by resisting a tyranny. I thank God Almighty for this," Parwar said. 

When asked about the possibility of participating in new elections being organized by the interim government, Parwar said that Jamaat-e-Islami “is an election-oriented party. If the election is acceptable to all, we will participate in that election, inshallah."

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the largest opposition party during Hasina’s rule and a key ally of Jamaat-e-Islami, also praised the decision to overturn the ban.

"Jamaat is a political party. I think it was not right to ban them," Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the BNP’s secretary-general, said regarding the ban. "They have been in politics for a long time. They were represented in the parliament. Therefore, the decision to revoke the banning of Jamaat-Shibir is correct."

However, some critics argued that overturning the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and allowing the party to enter politics again would undermine efforts to rebuild the country following Hasina’s ouster. 

The reversal of the ban also put into the spotlight once more the controversies that Jamaat-e-Islami has been involved in, especially during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The party was strongly rebuked for cooperating with the Pakistani military during the war, which saw the death of 3 million people. Two hundred thousand women were also raped during the war, and more than a million were displaced and fled to India.

Many of its leaders were accused of committing war crimes and being complicit in genocide during the war in 197. Several have been convicted and even hanged by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh, formed in 2009 by the ruling Awami League to punish those perceived to have cooperated with the Pakistani army during the war.

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