Sheikh Hasina once played a crucial role in rescuing Bangladesh from military rule. However, her time in power has been marked by the mass arrest of political opponents and human rights sanctions against her security forces.<\/p>\n
Since July, the autocratic premier has faced widespread protests, initially led by university students rallying against civil service job quotas. These protests have evolved into some of the worst unrest of her 15-year tenure, with opponents calling for her resignation. Though the protests were largely peaceful, attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups have drawn international condemnation.<\/p>\n
In January, the 76-year-old Hasina won a fifth term as prime minister, with the opposition boycotting the vote, claiming it was neither free nor fair. Hasina labeled the main opposition party a \u201cterrorist organisation\u201d at the time. Critics accuse her government of various rights abuses, including the murder of opposition activists.<\/p>\n
Hasina, the daughter of the revolutionary leader who led Bangladesh to independence, has overseen rapid economic growth in a country once dismissed by U.S. statesman Henry Kissinger as a \u201cbasket case.\u201d Last year, she promised to transform Bangladesh into a \u201cprosperous and developed country,\u201d but about 18 million young Bangladeshis are unemployed, according to government figures.<\/p>\n
Economic Rise<\/strong><\/p>\n Hasina was 27 and abroad when renegade military officers murdered her father, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along with her mother and three brothers in a 1975 coup. After living in exile for six years, she returned to lead her father\u2019s Awami League party, enduring lengthy house arrests during her decade-long struggle.<\/p>\n Hasina allied with Khaleda Zia\u2019s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to oust military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1990. However, their rivalry soon dominated Bangladeshi politics. Hasina first served as prime minister in 1996 but lost to Zia five years later. Both were imprisoned on corruption charges in 2007 after a coup by a military-backed government. The charges were dropped, and they contested an election the following year, which Hasina won in a landslide. She has been in power ever since, while the 78-year-old Zia, in poor health, remains in hospital after a 17-year prison sentence on graft charges in 2018, with top BNP leaders also imprisoned.<\/p>\n Supporters praise Hasina for leading Bangladesh through significant economic growth, driven largely by the mostly female garment export industry workforce. Since gaining independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has grown an average of more than six percent annually since 2009. Poverty has decreased dramatically, with over 95 percent of the country\u2019s 170 million people now having access to electricity, and per capita income surpassed that of India in 2021.<\/p>\n Hasina has received international acclaim for welcoming hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar and for decisively cracking down on Islamist militants after five extremists killed 22 people in a Dhaka caf\u00e9 in 2016.<\/p>\n Silencing Dissent<\/strong><\/p>\n However, her government\u2019s intolerance towards dissent has caused domestic resentment and international concern. Over the past decade, five top Islamist leaders and a senior opposition figure were executed for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 liberation war. Instead of healing the wounds of that conflict, the trials triggered mass protests and deadly clashes, with opponents branding them a politically motivated effort to silence dissent.<\/p>\n In 2021, the United States imposed sanctions on an elite branch of Bangladesh\u2019s security forces and seven of its top officers over widespread human rights abuses. Amid mounting protests, Hasina has maintained that she has worked for the nation. Last month, she toured areas of Dhaka damaged during days of deadly unrest, including a metro station among several government buildings that were torched or vandalized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In January, the 76-year-old Hasina won a fifth term as prime minister, with the opposition boycotting the vote, claiming it was neither free nor fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":385,"featured_media":28248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[2620,521,8046,15210,1146,4924,16095],"class_list":["post-28242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangladesh","category-spotlight","tag-awami-league-party","tag-bangladesh","tag-bangladesh-nationalist-party-bnp","tag-bangladesh-pm","tag-bangladesh-protests","tag-pm-sheikh-hasina","tag-sheikh-hasina-resignation"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}