THE demand for the trial of and a ban on the Awami League and its fronts for the mass killing of July 2024 has resurfaced with vigour. The demand has been around since the installation of the interim government in August that year, but it appears to have somewhat died down. In the turn of event, protesters, who included students and activists of various political parties, blocked the Shahbagh crossing in Dhaka in the afternoon on May 9 after a rally in front of Jamuna, the official residence of the chief adviser to the interim government, that had begun the night before to push for the trial of and a ban on the party. The protests spilled over to a few outlying districts, too. The protesters have genuine grounds to vent their grievances as the government has apparently failed to arrest many of the Awami League leaders for the trial. Besides, in more than nine months, the interim government appears to have made little progress in effectively putting to trial the Awami League鈥檚 decision-makers for carrying out the mass killing. Even the process of investigation for the crimes committed by the Awami League leaders is frustratingly slow.
The escape of ranking Awami League leaders without being tried for their misdeeds is proof of the government鈥檚 lack of seriousness. The trial of the individual leaders of the Awami League and the party as an organisation for their role in the mass killing is, however, more important than the imposition of a ban on the party. Because, a political party is the embodiment of certain ideologies and thoughts that cannot be vanquished with a ban. The undemocratic politics, rather, needs to be fought with democratic politics. The Awami League government on August 1, 2024 banned the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its fronts by an executive order, but it eventually has not helped to stop the party鈥檚 political activities. The protesters, meanwhile, also appear to be missing out on one point. There is the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, which stands accused of having committed crimes of a far greater intensity against humanity during Bangladesh鈥檚 liberation war in 1971. When the International Crimes Tribunal tried Jamaat leaders beginning in 2013, it came up with the observation that Jamaat should also be tried as an organisation which the Awami League did not carry through.
The government should, under the circumstances, rather, expedite the process of trying Awami League leaders individually and thoroughly investigate the role of the Awami League as a political party in the July 2024 mass killing and proceed with the process of trying the organisation. In the process, the interim government must not have a double standard by trying the Awami League for the mass killing and sparing Jamaat for actively taking part in a genocide.
