Thousands of opposition activists languish in prison as Bangladesh gears up for national election

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Hazera Khatun, 70, holds a portrait of her son Sajedul Islam Sumon, a BNP local politician who has been missing for over 10 years, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Khatun founded Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh after the disappearance of her son. In August, Human Rights Watch said Bangladesh’s security forces have committed over 600 enforced disappearances since 2009, when prime minister Sheikh Hasina came to power for the second time. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Nasima Akhter cries as she speaks about her brother Fazlur Rahman, a Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist, with his widow Rowshan Ara, left, and his daughter Khadiza Akhter sitting beside in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Kajol’s family says he was arrested by police on Oct. 25 outside the tea stall he ran, and died in hospital over a week ago where he was taken from jail after he fell sick. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Mohammad Sirajul Islam, 60, wipes tears as he narrates the sequence leading to the death of his friend Fazlur Rahman, an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. BNP, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, say Rahman is among 10 of their members who have died in custody, after thousands of their supporters and politicians have been arrested on what they say are trumped-up charges in the lead up to the polls. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Mohammad Shojol Hossain displays a card of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) annual national council with a photograph of his father Fazlur Rahman, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Rahman’s family says he was arrested by police on Oct. 25 outside the tea stall he ran, and died in hospital over a week ago where he was taken from jail after he fell sick. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Family members of Fazlur Rahman, an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist, mourn inside their home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Rahman, 63, was one of thousands of opposition activists who were arrested in the months leading to Sunday’s parliamentary election amid a sweeping polarized political culture. He died on a hospital floor with his hands and legs still cuffed, his son Mohammad said, his voice breaking while recalling his father’s final moments. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Mohammad Shojol Hossain speaks to the Associated Press about his father Fazlur Rahman, an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Rahman, 63, was one of thousands of opposition activists who were arrested in the months leading to Sunday’s parliamentary election amid a sweeping polarized political culture. He died on a hospital floor with his hands and legs still cuffed, his son Mohammad said, his voice breaking while recalling his father’s final moments. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Sirajul Islam, left, speaks with Mohammad Shojol Hossain next to a poster seeking justice for Hossain’s father Fazlur Rahman, an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activist, outside their home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Rahman, 63, was one of thousands of opposition activists who were arrested in the months leading to Sunday’s parliamentary election amid a sweeping polarized political culture. He died on a hospital floor with his hands and legs still cuffed, his son Mohammad said, his voice breaking while recalling his father’s final moments. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Mohammad Shojol Hossain, right, walks with Mohammad Sirajul Islam, a friend of his father Fazlur Rahman, who was an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activist, outside their home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. The BNP say Rahman is among 10 of their members who have died in custody, after thousands of their supporters and politicians have been arrested on what they say are trumped-up charges in the lead up to the polls. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Sanjida, right, assists her mother Hazera Khatun, 70, the founder of Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform for family members of victims of disappearances in Bangladesh, at her residence cum office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Sanjida’s brother Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician, has been missing for over 10 years. His family say he was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a special security force unit, on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Hafsa Islam Raita, left, whose father Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician has been missing for over 10 years, stands with Anisha Islam Insha, 17, and Inam ul Islam, 6, children of Ismail Hossain Baten who disappeared in 2019, at Mayer Daak’s office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, is a platform for family members of victims of disappearances in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Sanjida, second right, coordinator of Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, speaks with Nasrin Jahan Smrity, wearing red, whose husband disappeared in 2019, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Sanjida’s brother Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician, has been missing for over 10 years. His family say he was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a special security force unit, on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Post it notes written by Hafsa Islam Raita, 16, are seen stuck on the wall of her room which once belonged to her father Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician who has been missing for over 10 years, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. His family say he was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a special security force unit, on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. Hafsa was six when her father disappeared. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Sanjida, coordinator of Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform founded by her mother for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, speaks to the Associated Press at her residence cum office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Tulee’s brother Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician, has been missing for over 10 years. His family say he was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a special security force unit, on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Nasrin Jahan Smrity, right, whose husband disappeared in 2019, speaks to Hazera Khatun, 70, the founder of Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform she formed for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh after her son went missing over 10 years ago, at her residence cum office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Khatun’s family say her son Sajedul Islam was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a special security force unit, on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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A man who said he suffered burn injuries during a protest by the main opposition BNP in October, participates in a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. Authorities at the time said they arrested scores of BNP members for stoking violence and burning vehicles. They have since blamed numerous arson attacks on the opposition, which BNP has denied, saying the accusations were politically motivated and aimed at quashing their supporters as the election approaches. (AP photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

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People who said they suffered burn injuries during protests by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party in October, participate in a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. Authorities at the time said they arrested scores of BNP members for stoking violence and burning vehicles. They have since blamed numerous arson attacks on the opposition, which BNP has denied, saying the accusations were politically motivated and aimed at quashing their supporters as the election approaches. (AP photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

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People join a rally by victims who said they suffered burn injuries during protests by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party in October, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. Authorities at the time said they arrested scores of BNP members for stoking violence and burning vehicles. They have since blamed numerous arson attacks on the opposition, which BNP has denied, saying the accusations were politically motivated and aimed at quashing their supporters as the election approaches. (AP photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

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Anisha Islam Insha, 17, daughter of Ismail Hossain Baten, who disappeared in 2019, walks in the office of Mayer Daak, Mother’s Call, a platform for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, have accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government of a major crackdown targeting its supporters and opposition politicians on what they say are trumped-up charges in the lead-up to the polls. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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Hazera Khatun, 70, walks into her house, past a portrait of her son Sajedul Islam, an opposition BNP local politician who has been missing for over 10 years, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Khatun founded Mayer Daak, or Mother’s Call, a platform for family members of victims of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh after the disappearance of her son. In August, Human Rights Watch said Bangladesh’s security forces have committed over 600 enforced disappearances since 2009, when prime minister Sheikh Hasina came to power for the second time. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

By KRUTIKA PATHI

DHAKA (AP) — Fazlur Rahman died on a hospital floor with his hands and legs still cuffed, his son Mohammad said, his voice breaking while recalling his father’s final moments.

Rahman, 63, was one of thousands of opposition activists who were arrested in the months leading to Sunday’s parliamentary election amid a sweeping polarized political culture.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, said Rahman was one of 10 members who died in police custody. According to his family, he was arrested on Oct. 25 outside the tea stall he ran and taken to jail. He fell sick and was later transferred to a hospital where he died over a week ago, they said. Rahman’s arrest came three days before a massive opposition rally turned violent, leaving at least 11 dead and nearly a hundred injured.

His family believed he was targeted for being an outspoken BNP supporter for the last 35 years.

“My father was with the BNP, which is why they took him,” Mohammad said, “if he dies, BNP’s name will vanish from our neighborhood.”

The BNP has accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government of a major crackdown targeting its supporters and opposition politicians on what they say are trumped-up charges in the lead-up to the polls. They claimed that over 20,000 of their members have been jailed in recent months.

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However, government officials argued the figure to be much lower and that arrests were made not because of political affiliations but rather specific criminal charges such as arson. Attorney General A.M. Amin Uddin told The Associated Press over the phone Friday that between 2,000 and 3,000 people have been arrested. The country’s law minister told the BBC this week that 10,000 have been arrested.

The figures remain unclear.

CIVICUS, a nonprofit that tracks civic freedoms around the world, recently downgraded Bangladesh to “closed,” the worst rating that it could assign, along with China and Venezuela, following the latest crackdown on opposition supporters.

“We’ve seen many of them being arbitrarily arrested and many of them are facing what we consider fabricated charges,” said Josef Benedict, a researcher with a focus on South Asia at CIVICUS.

Rahman’s family said he was arrested in connection to a case dating back to 2022.

The clampdown has raised questions about the legitimacy of the upcoming election.

The BNP and other opposition parties had previously announced a boycott of the election, saying they could not trust the current administration to run it fairly. They repeatedly demanded Hasina’s resignation and for a caretaker government to oversee the election. The move has all but guaranteed Hasina, the country’s longest-serving leader, to extend her 15-year-long rule and clinch a fifth term in power.

Rights groups have called the polls a farce, and fear that it follows a pattern. In 2018, Hasina’s Awami League-led alliance won 96% of the 300 seats in parliament amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging, which authorities denied. And in 2014, she came to power after a boycott by all major opposition parties.

Instead of the BNP, smaller opposition parties and over 400 independent candidates — including scores from the Awami League itself — are participating. The government has invited international observers and defended the polls as fair and democratic, but critics say the aim is to make them look competitive instead.

The recent targeting of the BNP has also reignited concerns of alleged enforced disappearances of opposition members and critics under the Hasina government, said Benedict, the researcher at CIVICUS.

In August, Human Rights Watch said Bangladesh’s security forces have committed over 600 enforced disappearances since 2009, when Hasina came to power for the second time. The figures, based on Bangladeshi human rights monitors, show that nearly 100 remain missing.

The government has consistently denied the accusations but has refused to work with the U.N. to investigate the disappearances. In 2022, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan dismissed these concerns and said that those who went missing might be in hiding, and often return after a few days.

That hasn’t been the case for Sajedul Islam, a BNP local politician, who has been missing for over 10 years, said Sanjida, his sister.

His family said he was picked up by agents of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion — a special security force unit — on 4 Dec. 2013, just days before the 2014 general election. Over 20 people working at the construction site from where Islam was taken saw agents dressed in the black RAB uniform tying his hands before bundling him into a van, the family said.

“For as long as we live, I will keep saying, ‘bring my brother back because he is my family. He is my blood,’” Sanjida said.

Rights groups have long accused RAB of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and human rights violations, sparking the U.S. government to impose sanctions on the elite paramilitary force in 2021.

While this helped bring down the number of such incidents, Islam’s sister said they have struggled to push authorities to investigate her brother’s disappearance.

“He was a strong organizer for the BNP in our neighborhood, he was popular and people listened to him - I think that’s why he was targeted,” Sanjida said.

Political observers say such cases illustrate how the bitter rivalry between Hasina’s Awami League and the BNP led by Zia, who is ailing and under house arrest, has polarized Bangladeshi politics — and its citizens — for decades.

Hasina has often accused the BNP of courting hardline extremists that her party, which calls itself moderate and secular, had worked to stamp out, while Zia’s BNP accuses the Awami League of using oppressive tactics to stay in power.

The decades-long feud has deeply fractured the political landscape in Bangladesh, where the two main parties are marred by a history of electoral violence and a politics of retribution.

When the BNP was last in power, from 2001-2006, rights groups and observers detailed how political and security conditions deteriorated in Bangladesh. In 2004, a grenade attack on a rally led by Hasina killed over 20 people, and she narrowly escaped. The country saw nearly daily bombings throughout 2005, according to a Human Rights Watch report at the time, which also accused the then-BNP government of widespread rights abuses.

This week in the capital, Dhaka, people who said they suffered burn injuries during protests by the BNP in October, took to the streets. Authorities at the time said they arrested scores of BNP members for stoking violence and burning vehicles. They have since blamed numerous arson attacks on the opposition, which BNP has denied, saying the accusations were politically motivated and aimed at quashing their supporters as the election approaches.

For Mohammad, who believes his father died because of supporting the BNP, this election doesn’t exist.

“After seeing my father’s condition, I will never vote as long as this government is here,” he said.