“The ruling party is controlling all the state machinery, whether it’s the law enforcement agencies or the judiciary,” says BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who has been charged in 93 cases-including vandalism and murder-and imprisoned nine times.
“Whenever we raise our voices, they oppress us.”
Bangladesh matters.
It is the largest single contributor to U.N. peacekeepers and regularly joins exercises with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Its vibrant diaspora is intrinsic to business and artistic communities across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The U.S. is the biggest source of foreign direct investment and the top destination for Bangladeshi exports.
And as one of the few developing world leaders to (albeit belatedly) condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Hasina has proven herself useful for the West, not least for taking in some 1 million Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar.
But Washington is concerned about Bangladesh’s drift toward despotism.
Hasina was not invited to the latest two U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy gatherings, and in May the country unveiled visa restrictions on any Bangladeshi undermining elections.
In response, Hasina told parliament the U.S. was “trying to eliminate democracy” by engineering her ouster. Asked about her allegation, U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter D. Haas insists Washington is “scrupulous about not picking sides.”
But at a time when the U.S. is desperate to counter China’s growing regional footprint at every turn, the stridency of American official policy is telling.
“The U.S. seems to have made Bangladesh a test case for its democracy-promotion policy overseas,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.
“The big risk is that all this pressure will backfire and prompt the government to double down and do everything possible to stay in power.”