[GEO.TV] Once Bangladesh's largest political party, the Awami League has been outlawed since its leader, the loathesome Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and now exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia showed such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums . That is probably because Khaleda's late husband was the Pak tool who had Mujib assassinated...
, was tossed in a mass uprising last year.
Now, its supporters — encouraged by Hasina's social media calls to "resist" — are staging flash mob protests defying the ban as the country prepares for elections from which the party is barred.
In the capital, Dhaka, 45-year-old cleaner Mohammad Kashem described witnessing around 25 Awami League loyalists being chased, beaten, and detained by police at one such rally.
"It's happening all over Dhaka," Kashem told AFP, saying videos of such spontaneous demonstrations appear constantly on social media.
"We see it every day on Facebook."
The elections, expected in February 2026, will be the first since Hasina fled into exile in India as crowds stormed her palace, ending her 15-year rule.
She has since defied court orders to attend her ongoing trial on charges amounting to crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering a deadly crackdown during the revolt.
Her party and its supporters have since been pushed underground.
More than 800 have been arrested in connection with the flash mobs, say officials, which have rattled the interim government of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as he oversees the South Asian nation of 170 million until the polls.
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