Bangladesh’s interim government on Saturday banned all activities of the former ruling Awami League party led by Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted as prime minister in a mass uprising last year.
Asif Nazrul, the law affairs adviser, said late Saturday the interim cabinet headed by Muhammad Yunus had decided to ban the party's activities online and elsewhere under the country’s antiterrorism law.
The ban would stay in place until a special tribunal completed a trial of the party and its top leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students and other protesters during an anti-government uprising in July and August last year.
Three days after the uprising ended Ms Hasina's 15 years of rule, Mr Yunus took power as interim leader of the nation.
“This decision is aimed at ensuring national security and sovereignty, protection of activists of the July movement, and plaintiffs and witnesses involved in the tribunal proceedings," Mr Nazrul told reporters after a special cabinet meeting.
He said a government notification detailing the conditions of the ban would be published soon.
Ms Hasina and several of her senior party colleagues were slapped with murder cases after her ouster last year. The former prime minister fled into exile in India on August 5 just as the protesters were preparing to storm her official residence.
The UN human rights office reported in February that up to 1,400 people might have been killed during three weeks of the agitation that collapsed Ms Hasina’s government.
The dramatic decision to ban the Awami League came after thousands of protesters, including supporters of a newly formed political party by students, took to the streets in Dhaka and issued an ultimatum to ban Ms Hasina’s party by Saturday night.
