Yearbook 2010
Bangladesh. The 2009 revolt in a semi-military border
union when 74 people were killed, most of the higher
commanders, began to have their legal aftermath. Several
hundred lower-level soldiers - out of a total of about 3,500
defendants - were jailed for up to seven years. Trials
continued throughout the year. In July, there were also
prosecutions against 824 people in responsible positions who
risk the death penalty. The revolving force of Bangladesh
Rifles changed its name to Border Guards Bangladesh and
received new uniforms.
According to
COUNTRYAAH, Bangladesh's troubled past is still affecting the
judiciary. In January, five former officers of the 1975
assassinations were executed on the country's first
President Mujibur Rahman and 19 other people, including
almost his entire family. They had been sentenced to death
in 1998 and have now eliminated all appeals. Six other
conspirators have disappeared.
In March, a special war crimes tribunal was created to
deal with the aftermath of the Bangladesh independence war
in 1971. In July, four leading members of the Islamist party
Jamaat-e-Islami were indicted for cooperation with the
Pakistani army associations that carried out mass murders of
civilians. The establishment of the court aroused
controversy both within the country and in international
legal circles, where it was feared to be a tool for the
government's settlement with the opposition.
Prime Minister Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Mujibur
Rahman, was acquitted in May on the last of 15 charges of
corruption. All the charges were brought while she was in
opposition and touched on events during her last term in
power 1996-2001.
Islamic activity continued to worry the authorities. In
April, the leader of the banned party Hizb ut-Tahrir was
arrested for terrorist attacks plans, in August five members
of similarly banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahidin Bangladesh were
sentenced to life imprisonment for bombing in 2005 and in
July the government ordered the country's mosques and
libraries to remove all the books of Abu al-Ala Mawdudi,
founder of Jamaate Islami and death since 1971. He was a
leading Islamic ideologue and his writings are considered by
the government to be invigorating.
Hundreds of thousands of textile workers went on strike
in July for the requirement that the minimum allowable
monthly salary should be raised from about SEK 150 to at
least 450. Swedish H&M. The government only agreed to raise
the minimum wage to about SEK 270, and in December new
strikes and unrest broke out. Four people were shot dead by
police and many were injured in clashes. Despite the
conflict, a strong increase in textile exports contributed
to Bangladesh's record growth of 6.7 percent during the
year.
Nearly two years of relative political peace was broken
in November, when police, on the orders of a court, ousted
opposition leader Khaleda Zia from the housing she had been
leased by the government since her husband President Zia
ur-Rahman was assassinated in 1981. Strikes and clashes hit
most major cities during a day.
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