By A Concerned Academic
Police beating a young protester
Held under a Caretaker non-political government, Sheikh Hasina Wazed and her party, the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) won the election and formed the government for the first time in 1996. However, due to allegations of widespread corruption (during this tenure of Hasina, Transparency International ranked Bangladesh as No 1 corrupt country in the world) her party lost the next election in 2000.
In 2008, conducted by a military-backed caretaker government Shiek Hasina returned to power with a two/third plus majority in the parliament in an election that many termed as “free” but not “fair”.
However, after winning the election and forming the government the very first thing Hasina and her government did was that they took advantage of their overwhelming majority in the parliament and scrapped the provision of the election-time non-political caretaker government (CTG) system that till then had delivered four free and fair elections in the country.
A Long History of abuse and the rise of authoritarianism
Since then and counting, all elections were held under the supervision of Sheikh Hasina and her party never lost any of these “elections” mainly because these elections were flagrantly rigged and thus were boycotted by the opposition.
Under Hasina’s leadership, the period from 2009 to date, saw the slow death of democracy in Bangladesh. Authoritarianism has reached a stage that demonstrates all the “hallmarks of fascism.”
Shiekh Hasina’s intolerance of dissent has surpassed all imaginable limits. Harassment, incarceration, extrajudicial killings and the disappearance of the opposition politicians, and critics including members of civil society and journalists are common occurrences.[1]
Even Nobel Peace Award-winning economist, Dr. Yunus has not escaped her vindictive behaviour. In recent times Shiekh Hasina has insulted the Nobel Laureate publicly in the most indecent manner and lately, her government (conceivably with her nodding) has indicted the Laureate with false criminal cases.[2]
The July 2024 carnage[3]
Sheikh Hasina’s fascist character revealed its ugliest in mid-July this year when university students came out on the streets and protested the government’s decision to reserve 56% of the jobs in the public service, an arrangement the students feared and rightly so was designed to favour her party loyalists and barred entry through merit.
Under the order of Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister the government of Bangladesh responded to the protests with unprecedented brutality, where the armed forces and thugs of the ruling party were given orders to attack and shoot the protesters indiscriminately and at point-blank at times. Helicopters were used to shoot the protesters from above.
The carnage has resulted in numerous deaths and injuries – according to a recent estimate 300 + were killed and thousands were injured. Among the dead are – an 11-year-old boy, a fifth-grade student who was killed by a stray bullet while he was closing a window of his home to stay safe and a 6-year-old girl by a gunshot from a police helicopter while she was playing on the roof of her house.
The Bangladesh army which was also deployed to quell the student unrest was seen using among several battlefield armouries, UN-marked tanks (meant for Bangladesh army peace-keeping missions overseas) that have irked the United Nations, since.
International media, the UN and Amnesty International have reported graphic accounts of Sheikh Hasina’s brutal crackdown on innocent protesters and criticised and demanded accountability. However, due to the government imposed complete information blackout – mobile phones and internet connections have been disabled – the exact extent of the casualties of the carnage is difficult to figure out though many suspect that actual death, injury and arrest figures are likely to be much higher.[4]
Commenting on the ferocity of the Hasina government’s response to the protests, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the US Congressman, has recently said, “Sheikh Hasina has used a tyrant’s handbook…” to quell the dissenting voices.
No remorse
Sadly, instead of showing remorse and initiating a probe into these horrific extra-judicial killings of protesting students and bystanders, Shiekh Hasina, the Prime Minister, and her cabinet colleagues have done the opposite – they have criticised the protesters and blamed the opposition political parties and defended the acts of unimaginable violence persecuted by the law enforcement agencies and with Gestapo type arrests and tortures of protesters and opposition political leaders and imposed a complete information blackout through disabling of the mobile and internet facilities.
An op-ed article in the New York Times on July 27, 2024, reported that Shiekh Hasina and her government’s response to the July 2024 carnage “…fits a pattern: pushing a confrontation to the point of rupture, then using her power to shield her supporters and round up her opponents.”
Shiekh Hasina’s Honorary Degrees/Honorifics: Time to Review, Act and Revoke?
Given Shiekh Hasina’s long history of flagrant violations of human rights, her consistent denting of democratic values, norms and practices in Bangladesh and more importantly, her government’s recent merciless and remorseless brutal and violent suppression of student protests in Bangladesh that had happened under her watch if not under her order and have left hundreds dead and thousands injured and many unlawfully incarcerated, the esteemed institutions (listed below) that had conferred honorary degrees/honorifics on Shiekh Hasina must investigate, review and determine the moral legitimacy/merit of these awards especially that continued association of these institutions with someone like Shiekh Hasina, a proven abuser of human rights, has the risk of compromising the ethical and intellectual integrity of these institutions.
It may thus be wise for these institutions to withdraw/revoke the awards that have been conferred on Shiekh Hasina Wazed, a proven and unrepentant violator of human rights and by doing so, demonstrate to the world that human rights violators have no place in their institutions and that they stand against injustices and side with the mission of justice and human rights, worldwide!
The List of Institutions/Honorary Degrees/Awards Conferred on Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
- Honorary Doctor of Law, Australia National University, 1999
- Honorary Doctor of Laws by the Waseda University of Japan
- Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy in Liberal Arts by University of Abertay Dundee, UK
- Honorary Degree of Desikottama by Visva-Bharati University of West Bengal, India
- Honorary Doctor of Laws, by the Australian National University, Australia
- Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the Bridgeport University, USA
- Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Paul Haris Fellowship by the Rotary International
- UNESCO’s Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, 1998
- M K Gandhi Award, India1998
- Mother Teresa Award, 1998 and 2006
- Pearl S. Buck Award by Randolph Macon Women’s College of USA, 1999
- CERES Medal, 1999
- UN Award for MDG achievement (child mortality), 2010
- Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, 2009, Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, India
- South-South Award, 2011
- UN Award for MDG Achievement, 2013
- Rotary Peace Prize, 2013
- Tree of Peace, UNESCO 2014
- ICT Sustainable Development Award, 2015
- Champions of the Earth, 2015
- Agent of Change Award, 2016
- Planet 50-50 Champion, 2016
[1] https://www.omct.org/en/resources/statements/bangladesh-arbitrary-detention-and-impunity-for-torture-continues-after-elections#:~:text=Sheikh%20Hasina%2C%20the%20long%2Dstanding,country%20with%20almost%20complete%20impunity.
[2] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3271388/persecution-bangladeshi-nobel-laureate-political-vendetta-hasina-government-analysts
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-24/bangladesh-quota-protests-students-injured-killed/104119102
[4] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/07/the-bangladesh-government-has-been-killing-student-protesters-but-reporting-it-has-become-nearly-impossible/