Dhaka: Bangladesh’s new government on Wednesday revoked a ban on the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which had been imposed in the final days of the now-ousted autocratic leader, Sheikh Hasina. The decision, effective immediately, overturns an order issued on August 1, 2024, that had prohibited the party’s operations.
Jamaat-e-Islami, a party with millions of supporters, was first banned from contesting elections in 2013 after the high court ruled that its charter was in violation of the secular constitution of Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation with a population of 170 million. The party was subsequently barred from participating in the 2014, 2018, and January 2024 elections, during which Hasina, now 76, secured her fifth term in office in a widely criticized electoral process lacking credible opposition.
In a controversial move, Hasina’s government extended the ban on Jamaat under an anti-terrorism act on August 1, just four days before she was forced out of power following weeks of intense, student-led protests. She fled to India by helicopter shortly thereafter.
The new government’s order to lift the ban stated that there was “no specific evidence of involvement with terrorism and violence,” including for the party’s student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir. Jamaat-e-Islami remains one of Bangladesh’s key political parties, alongside the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
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