Former Prime Minister Hasina’s government had imposed a complete ban on the party under the Anti-Terrorism Act days before her removal on August 1.
Bangladesh’s new interim government on Wednesday lifted the ban on the country’s largest religious-political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which was imposed in the final days of now-ousted autocrat Sheikh Hasina’s rule.
“Government revokes earlier order dated 1 August 2024 banning Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh”. “It will take effect immediately.”
Jamaat-e-Islami, which has millions of supporters, was banned from contesting elections in 2013 after High Court judges ruled its charter violated the secular constitution of the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.
The party was also barred from contesting elections in 2014, 2018 and again in January this year, when 76-year-old Hasina won her fifth term in a widely discredited election without credible opposition.
Hasina’s government subsequently banned the party under an anti-terrorism act on August 1, ousting her after weeks of student-led protests, fleeing to India by helicopter. Just four days before.
The government decree said it had lifted the ban, including the Jamaat’s student wing “Islami Chhatra Shabbir”, as “no concrete evidence of involvement in terrorism and violence was found”.
The party is one of the main political parties in the country along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
It is not clear what power Hasina’s once most powerful party, the Awami League, still holds.