In her first public address since being ousted from power during the 2024 uprising and subsequently living in exile in India, Awami League president and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has launched a blistering attack on Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus.
According to NDTV, Hasina accused the current administration of running an “illegal and violent” regime, claiming that under Yunus’s leadership Bangladesh has entered “an era of fear, anarchy, and the exile of democracy.” Her remarks were delivered through an audio message played at a press conference titled “Save Democracy in Bangladesh,” held on Friday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in New Delhi.
Sheikh Hasina, who has been sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal over allegations that she ordered the killing of 1,400 people to suppress protests, is viewed by her critics as a “corrupt fascist autocrat.” Bangladesh’s courts consider her a fugitive from justice.
In her speech, Hasina repeatedly branded Muhammad Yunus as a “killer fascist,” “moneylender,” “money launderer,” and a “power-hungry traitor,” intensifying her personal attacks on the chief adviser of the interim government. She alleged that Yunus is impoverishing the country, selling off its land and resources to foreign interests, and pushing Bangladesh toward “a furnace of multinational conflict.”
“By betraying the nation, the killer fascist Yunus is dragging our beloved motherland toward disaster,” she said.
Describing Bangladesh’s current political situation as a crisis threatening the country’s sovereignty and constitution, Hasina urged her supporters to rise up and “oust a puppet government run by foreign interests.” She claimed that her removal from power on 5 August 2024 was the result of a “planned conspiracy” and that from that day onward, Bangladesh has descended into what she termed an age of terror, where democracy is “in exile” and human rights are being “trampled into the dust.”
She portrayed the country as “a massive prison, a death pit, a land of death,” echoing language once used against her own government by opposition parties during her years in power. She further alleged widespread mob violence, looting, extortion, and a total collapse of law and order, saying that citizens’ lives and property were no longer safe.
Hasina also accused the interim authorities of destroying media freedom and allowing unchecked violence against women and religious minorities. She called on “all democratic, progressive, and secular forces of the Liberation War” to unite, stressing the need to restore what she described as a constitution “written in the blood of martyrs.”
Reasserting the Awami League’s central role in national politics, Hasina claimed her party remains the sole legitimate guardian of Bangladesh’s democratic and pluralistic traditions, despite long-standing accusations by opponents that it established one-party rule during her tenure.
In her address, Hasina laid out five demands, including the removal of the Yunus-led interim government, restoration of democracy, and the creation of conditions for free and fair elections—an assertion that drew irony given allegations of widespread irregularities in the last three elections held under her leadership. She also called for an end to violence and instability, protection for minorities and vulnerable groups, an end to what she termed politically motivated harassment of journalists and political activists, and a neutral United Nations–led investigation into events over the past year to enable national reconciliation.
Claiming that the “international community stands with us,” Hasina urged her supporters to remain united, arguing that collective strength could force the interim government to listen to the voice of the people.
NDTV noted that Hasina’s speech starkly underscored the deep political divisions in Bangladesh. By framing the current crisis as a struggle between the ideals of the Liberation War and what she described as extremism, chaos, and foreign influence, Hasina sought to recast the Awami League’s political battle not as a partisan fight, but as a patriotic duty to save the nation.
