Awami League supporters protest at UN, demand end to party ban in Bangladesh

United Nations, May 20 (IANS) Supporters of the Awami League held a demonstration on Monday outside the UN headquarters against the ban on the party in Bangladesh and demanded that the world organisation ensure that democracy is restored.

Siddique Rahman, the president of the USA Awami League, said, “The illegal government of Muhammad Yunus has banned the Awami League, which is the legally elected party”.

If the elections are to be held in the inclusive manner that the UN wants, the ban should be lifted, and the League should be allowed to participate in it, he said.

The UN should ensure that democracy is restored, he added.

Yunus may have received the Nobel Prize, but he is now a dictator running an unelected regime that overthrew the legitimate government, Rahman added.

About 75 people drawn from the USA Awami League, Committee for Democratic Bangladesh, Congress of Bangladeshi Americans, and the America Bangladesh Community Development Initiative joined the protest.

Speakers at the protest said that the US should demand that democracy be restored to Bangladesh.

The interim government, headed by Yunus, which took power amid riots and protests against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, banned the Awami League under the Anti-terrorism Act.

Last week, the Bangladesh Election Commission suspended the party's registration, making it ineligible to contest elections.

Bangladesh has not set a date for elections.

Prodip Kar, an organiser of the protest, said they had given a memorandum to the UN with their demands.

He said that Sheikh Hasina remains the prime minister legally and that Yunus took power with the help of “the Jamaat-e-Islami and terrorists”.

--IANS

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