Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the country's opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, this week over allegations that Zia and members of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were involved in a deadly fire-bomb attack in 2015.
Zia and the country's current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have been rivals for years and have alternated as the country's leader over the last two decades.
The opposition leader was also charged with sedition early this year and other members of the BNP say they have been harassed, detained and forced to flee the country.
In an interview conducted before the recent arrest warrant, Mehdi Hasan sat down with the country's State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shahriar Alam, to discuss the future of democracy in the country.
Alam also discussed the state of workers' rights in Bangladesh - nearly three years after the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers.
Watch more from Mehdi Hasan's interview with Alam, in which they discuss the recent spate of ISIL-claimed attacks in the country.
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