Who Is Hasanul Haque Inu, and Why Does It Matter?
In Bangladesh today, a man who spent decades fighting for secularism, democracy, and the very soul of his nation is sitting behind bars. Hasanul Haque Inu, the veteran politician, former information minister, and one of the most recognizable faces of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, is not a criminal. He is a symbol. And that, more than anything else, is precisely why certain forces want him silenced.
Inu built his political life on resisting the very forces that are now orchestrating his persecution. He fought against military dictatorships. He stood against the creeping Islamization of Bangladeshi politics. He was a thorn in the side of every fundamentalist group that ever tried to rewrite the secular founding spirit of 1971. That history is not incidental to what is happening to him now. That history is the reason.
Jurisdiction and the Limits of Mandate
The tribunal was created under the International Crimes Act of 1973 to address genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes linked to the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Its purpose is specific and rooted in history. Extending its reach into contemporary or unrelated matters raises immediate legal concerns.
Courts derive their legitimacy from clearly defined jurisdiction. When that boundary becomes uncertain, the principle of legality is weakened. No individual should be tried under a framework that does not clearly apply to their case. Using a specialized tribunal in place of ordinary criminal courts risks undermining both constitutional balance and public confidence.
Not Fair Justice: The Case Against Hasanul Haq Inu
Despite the prosecution presenting four independent or public witnesses, not a single one was able to provide credible or admissible evidence establishing that Hasanul Haq Inu bore any responsibility for the killing of six people. The case, as it stands, rests on remarkably thin ground.
What makes this even more troubling is the legal basis on which the charges have been framed. The prosecution is relying on the doctrine of “superior command responsibility,” holding Inu accountable for state, governmental, and administrative actions taken between 1 July and 5 August 2024. Yet here lies the fundamental contradiction at the heart of this case: during that very period, Hasanul Haq Inu held no government or administrative position whatsoever. He was not a minister. He was not a Member of Parliament. He carried no constitutional authority, and he had no jurisdiction to make or enforce any administrative decision of any kind. How, then, can responsibility for state actions during that period be legitimately attributed to him? This is not merely a procedural question; it strikes at the very foundation of the charges themselves and raises serious doubts about whether justice is truly being served, or whether the law is being stretched far beyond its intended purpose to reach a predetermined conclusion.
The Timing Is Too Convenient to Be a Coincidence
Let us be honest about what the political landscape of Bangladesh looks like right now. Following the end of Sheikh Hasina’s rule in August 2024, a new political reality has emerged, one in which parties and groups that were once kept at the margins, including Jamaat e Islami and its various ideological allies, have found new oxygen. They have moved quickly. And one of the first things such forces do when they smell power is go after those who held them accountable.
Inu was not merely a political opponent of these groups. He was their most articulate critic. He named them. He exposed them. He argued, consistently and publicly, that their agenda was incompatible with the Bangladesh that millions sacrificed their lives to create in 1971. For groups rooted in that fundamentalist tradition, getting Inu out of the picture is not just political strategy. It is ideological payback.
The Charges Do Not Hold Up to Basic Scrutiny
Look carefully at the nature of the cases piling up against him, and you will find what lawyers call forum shopping and what ordinary people call setting someone up. Multiple cases, filed in quick succession, across different jurisdictions, on charges that range from vague to plainly absurd. This is not how genuine criminal justice works. This is how political persecution works.
In genuine criminal proceedings, the evidence comes first and the charges follow. What we are seeing with Inu is the reverse. The desired outcome, his imprisonment and political destruction, was decided first, and the cases are being built backwards to justify it. Every experienced observer of South Asian politics recognizes this pattern immediately. It has been used against journalists, activists, and opposition figures across the region for decades.
Jamaat e Islami’s Role Cannot Be Glossed Over
Jamaat e Islami is not simply a political party with a different ideology. It is an organization whose senior leaders were convicted by Bangladesh’s own International Crimes Tribunal for crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War, including collaboration with the Pakistani military and participation in mass killings. Inu has spent his career reminding Bangladeshis of this history, arguing that such an organization has no legitimate place in the democratic politics of a nation born out of resistance to exactly that kind of violence.
That Jamaat and its allied Islamist groups are now among the most enthusiastic supporters of the legal campaign against Inu is not a coincidence. It is a confession. When the people most eager to see a man destroyed are precisely those, he spent his life criticizing and exposing, the reasonable conclusion is not that he is guilty of crimes. The reasonable conclusion is that this is revenge dressed up in legal clothing.
A Secular Bangladesh Is Being Attacked Through Its Defenders
What is at stake here is bigger than one man’s freedom, as important as that is. Bangladesh was founded on four pillars: nationalism, socialism, democracy, and secularism. These were not accidental choices. They were a deliberate rejection of the theocratic logic that had governed the region under Pakistani rule. Inu represents that founding vision in its most committed form.
When fundamentalist groups target someone like him, they are not merely settling political scores. They are sending a message to every secular, progressive, and liberal voice in Bangladesh: fall in line, or face what he is facing. The chilling effect of this kind of politically motivated prosecution goes far beyond the courtroom. It reshapes what people are willing to say in public, what political positions they dare to take, and what kind of Bangladesh is even imaginable.
The International Community Must Pay Attention
Bangladesh’s friends in the democratic world, including India, the European Union, and democratic institutions across the globe, cannot afford to look away and treat this as an internal matter. When a democracy begins using its legal system as a weapon against those who built it, that is not merely a domestic concern. It is a signal about the direction in which a country is moving.
Hasanul Haque Inu deserves a fair trial if any genuine charges exist against him. What he does not deserve is to be made into a sacrificial offering on the altar of Islamist politics. The world has seen this before. It rarely ends well, not for the individual, and not for the country.
Free Inu. Defend Secularism. Remember 1971.
Hasanul Haque Inu is not a criminal. He is a man whose politics made him enemies among exactly the kind of people Bangladesh should never allow anywhere near its courts, its streets, or its future. The case against him is politically motivated, ideologically driven, and morally bankrupt.
But this was never really about one man.
His freedom is a mirror held up to Bangladesh itself. Look into it, and ask honestly what you see. Do you see the secular, democratic republic that generations bled for, that millions crossed rivers and borders and survived unspeakable things to build? Or do you see something else taking shape quietly, courthouse by courthouse, arrest by arrest, the very forces that opposed Bangladesh’s birth now writing its next chapter?
That is the test. Not for Inu. For all of us.
History does not wait for the comfortable or the cautious. It moves, and it records, and it remembers who stood where when the moment demanded clarity. Inu has always known this. He has staked his entire life on it.
Now the question falls to everyone else.
The martyrs of 1971 did not die for this. And we cannot pretend otherwise.
Parvez Hashem, Lawyer and Human Rights Defender
