Word: awami
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hasina, who heads the Awami League, the more liberal of Bangladesh's two main political parties, was arrested after a two-and-a-half-hour raid on her Dhaka home by dozens of police and security personnel. An official said that Hasina is being jailed for at least a month on an extortion charge relating to her time in power between 1996 and 2001. The caretaker government has also accused Hasina of involvement in the killings of four political rivals during widespread unrest late last year (an accusation Hasina also denies). It was that violence, which pitted Hasina's supporters...
...baneful." But, as Bangladesh's current boss, the 66-year-old Ahmed is showing a steely resolve. Beginning last October, the capital Dhaka was struck by violent street clashes between rival supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and opposition leader Sheikh Hasina's Awami League. In January, a state of emergency was imposed, elections scheduled for that month were indefinitely postponed, and Ahmed was named Chief Adviser-in effect the Prime Minister-of a caretaker government made up largely of technocrats backed by the military. Since then, Ahmed has gone after allegedly corrupt former officials...
...interim government has rounded up thousands of lower level officials. But as government communications adviser Major General M.A. Matin told reporters, "Our business at the moment is netting big fish." Among them: senior politicians and former ministers from both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its archrival, the Awami League (AL). The detainees, who maintain their innocence, have been imprisoned for 30 days without bail on suspicion of "antistate activities, sabotage and corruption." They have not yet been charged with specific crimes...
...differences between the two parties go much deeper than the personal feuds of their leaders. The Awami League came of age during the liberation struggle in the early 1970s when Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan. The party paints itself as the protector of those early secular, nationalist ideals, and a bulwark against radical Islam. The BNP, which is closer to Pakistan and embraces political Islam, argues that it is more religious and tougher on crime. During its recent stint in power the BNP counted on the support of fundamentalist Islamic parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami, sparking Western concerns that...
...With the election now delayed indefinitely, there is some hope that the standoff can be resolved. A new electoral commission and voter roll should placate the Awami League and, so long as the BNP does not in turn boycott a fresh ballot, fair elections are a real possibility. But Bangladesh's citizens aren't holding their breath. People "are hostage to the power struggle and who will be sharing the booty," says editor Chowdhury. "Politics has been polluted." A group of students from a private university in a Dhaka suburb concurs. Tauhid Jalil, 21, who is in his fourth year...