Dhaka, Sep 13 — Bangladesh’s Awami League on Saturday strongly criticised the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, accusing it of weaponising arbitrary arrests to suppress dissent and dismantle political opposition.
The party alleged that activists, intellectuals, former ministers, and even ordinary citizens are being detained not for crimes but for exercising their right to political association or peaceful assembly. “The surge in arrests is not random; it is systematic, targeted, and aimed at dismantling the very foundations of political organisation,” the Awami League said in a statement, pointing to a pattern of surveillance, preemptive detention, and criminalisation of symbolic acts of dissent.
The arrests of former minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui and Dhaka University professor Sheikh Hafizur Rahman Karzon after a Manch 71 roundtable were cited as evidence. Initially held on charges of mob disorder, both were later booked under anti-terror laws. “Even academic debate and policy discourse are being transformed into evidence of conspiracy,” the party said, warning that classrooms, forums, and the press are no longer safe spaces.
The Awami League also condemned the detention of Abu Alam Shahid Khan, a retired senior secretary and former Press Secretary to ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. His alleged offence was attending a constitutional reform discussion. The party argued that by targeting a respected bureaucrat and policy analyst, the Yunus regime had sent a chilling message: no arena — academic, media, or civil society — is beyond state control.
Raising alarm, the party said the silencing of credentialed voices deepens fear among ordinary citizens, discouraging free expression. “These arrests strike at the heart of Bangladesh’s democratic fabric. By eroding debate, dissent, and accountability, governance is sustained not through legitimacy but repression,” it stressed.
