Bangladesh top court restores Jamaat-i-Islami

Bangladesh on Sunday restored the registration of the Jamaat-i-Islami party, allowing it to take part in elections, more than a decade after it was removed under the now-overthrown government.

The country’s supreme court overturned a cancellation of Jamaat-i-Islami’s registration, allowing it to be formally listed as a political party with the election commission.

“The election commission is directed to deal with the registration of that party in accordance with law,” commission lawyer Towhidul Islam told AFP.

Jamaat-i-Islami party lawyer, Shishir Monir, said the supreme court’s decision would allow a “democratic, inclusive and multi-party system” in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.

“We hope that Bangladeshis, regardless of their ethnicity or religious identity, will vote for Jamaat, and that the parliament will be vibrant with constructive debates,” Monir told journalists.

After Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister in August, the party appealed for a review of the 2013 high court order banning it.

Sunday’s decision comes after Bangladesh’s top court on May 27 overturned a conviction against a key leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, A.T.M. Azharul Islam.

He had been sentenced to death in 2014 for rape, murder and genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 war with Pakistan.

Jamaat-i-Islami supported Islamabad during the war, a role that still sparks anger among many Bangladeshis today.

They were rivals of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League, who would become Bangladesh’s founding figure.

Hasina banned Jamaat-i-Islami during her tenure and cracked down on its leaders.

In May, Bangladesh’s interim government banned the Awami League, pending the outcome of a trial over its crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year.

Bangladesh to open trial of fugitive ex-PM

Meanwhile, Bangladesh will open Hasina’s trial on Sunday on charges of crimes against humanity related to the killings of protesters by police, prosecutors said.

ICT chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said on May 12 that Hasina faces at least five charges, including “abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising”.

“The prosecution team … is set to submit charges against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina,” said Gazi MH Tamim, one of the prosecutors.

The hearing is expected to be broadcast live on state-owned Bangladesh Television.