Execution Verdict Triggers Hasina Loyalists’ All-Out Rebellion Until November 30
Awami League vows total resistance until November 30 against “kangaroo court” death penalty.
The Awami League, the once-dominant political force led by Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has formally declared an open-ended campaign of nationwide agitations, demonstrations, and what it terms “resistance marches” across every district and upazila until 30 November. The party’s central leadership described the move as the beginning of an uncompromising struggle to defend what it calls “pro-liberation forces” and to prevent the complete annihilation of its political future following a controversial death verdict handed down against its top leaders.
On 17 November, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD), a domestic war-crimes court originally established under Hasina’s own administration in 2010, pronounced the death penalty in absentia on the 78-year-old former premier and her then home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. The charges stem from allegations of systematic crimes against humanity committed during the brutal crackdown on the student-led “July Uprising” between mid-July and early August 2024. Both defendants, currently believed to be sheltering in India, were tried without physical presence after Hasina fled Dhaka on 5 August 2024 aboard a military helicopter as protestors stormed her official residence.
In a series of fiery statements posted on its verified social media channels and disseminated through grassroots networks, the Awami League has categorically rejected the tribunal’s authority, branding it an “illegal” body now weaponised by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government. Party spokespersons allege that the entire judicial process was a premeditated political conspiracy designed to permanently disqualify Hasina and hundreds of senior Awami League figures from participating in the national election tentatively scheduled for February 2026. They further accuse the interim administration of orchestrating a “judicial assassination” to clear the path for rival political factions ahead of the polls.
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The party’s acting leadership has issued an ultimatum demanding the immediate resignation of Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, the dissolution of the “puppet” tribunal, and the unconditional annulment of what it describes as a “farcical and contemptible” verdict. Senior organisers have already begun mobilising thousands of grassroots workers, former ministers, and local government representatives who retained loyalty despite last year’s upheaval. The Awami League has warned that any attempt to hold elections while its leader faces a death sentence and its cadres remain under persecution will be met with street-by-street resistance, declaring that “a staged election without pro-liberation forces will never be accepted and will be thwarted at any cost.”
The escalating confrontation marks the most serious challenge yet to the interim government installed after the dramatic collapse of Hasina’s 15-year rule. The “July Uprising,” initially sparked by demands to abolish civil-service job quotas, rapidly morphed into a broader anti-authoritarian revolt that, according to a United Nations human-rights fact-finding mission, resulted in approximately 1,400 deaths and thousands of injuries between 15 July and 15 August 2024. With Hasina’s loyalists now openly threatening a return to mass mobilisation, Bangladesh braces for a renewed cycle of political turbulence that could derail the fragile roadmap toward restoring democratic governance.
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